Kitabı oku: «Gunpowder Treason and Plot, and Other Stories for Boys», sayfa 3
And shoot they did. Never was such a fusillade heard in the peaceful forest as on that night. Never were wolves so disgusted, so disenchanted, as on that painful occasion. A dozen or so fell, never more to prowl and howl; the rest, after much baying and snarling from a safe distance, retired in order to go forth and tell all young wolves and strangers of the discovery they had made that night – namely, that it is better to follow a sledge and eat horses and young pig than to stay behind to feast upon human creatures who fall out, and would thus seem to be the easier prey. This has since become a maxim among wolves.
Then the brothers walked quietly home. They passed the broken sledge and the bones of the poor ponies. A wolf or two still lingered here, but they discreetly retired; they were well fed, now, and no longer courageous.
"Get into the sledge, Paul, and I'll drag you home," said Peter, "like the hero you have proved yourself."
"Nonsense," said Paul; "you mock me, brother."
"I mean it," said Peter, and would have insisted, but that the sledge was found to be too much damaged for use.
"I hope they are not anxious about us," said Peter, as the pair reached the Ootin mansion and passed upstairs. "We will pretend we walked for choice; no need to alarm them."
But no one was alarmed. The little party awaiting their arrival here had been too busy to have time for anxieties. It was Vera who told the news. She took a hand of Paul and a hand of Peter. "Dear brothers," she said, "you both love me so well, and I you, that no other lips but mine shall tell you of the happiness the new year has brought me. I am to be married to one who is dear, I know, to both of you – Mr. Thirlstone."
"It is strange," said Peter that night, as the brothers lay in bed and talked over the events of the day, "how little I seem to mind Vera being engaged to the Englishman. How could I have been such a fool as to think – you know – what I told you?"
"I expect we are both rather young for that kind of thing," said Paul, with a sigh. "I think hunting is more in our line, brother; we understand that better."
In spite of which wise and true remark, Paul cried himself to sleep that night, Peter being fast asleep long before, and quite unconscious that his younger brother was engaged in a second attempt to play the hero – an attempt which, this time, was partly a failure.
LOST IN THE SOUDAN
Bimbashi Jones, or, as he was called at the beginning of the story, Lieutenant Jones, did not know much. He only knew that England, or Egypt, or both together, were about to administer what he would have called "beans," or perhaps "toko," to a person called the Khalifa, who had merited chastisement by desiring to "boss it" at Khartoum, which city, Jones was assured, belonged by right, together with the rest of the Soudan, to Egypt, and therefore in a way (and not a bad way either, Jones used to add with a look of intelligence, when talking of these things with his peers) to England.
Jones had not read "With Kitchener to Khartoum," unfortunately for himself; but this was not his fault, because that excellent work was not yet before the public – indeed, it was not written.
But though the lieutenant did not know much of matters that happened so very far away as Khartoum and "the district," yet he had proved himself a capital officer during the four or five years he had served with his regiment, the King's Own Clodshire Rifles, and had contrived to make himself a general favourite both with officers and men; so that when Jones, having most unfortunately fallen desperately in love with a lady who was, as he found out too late, already engaged to be married to some one else, determined to volunteer for the Egyptian army, in order to get out of the country for a change of surroundings, the colonel and the rest of the mess, though recognizing the wisdom of the step, were sorry indeed to part with the young officer, and gave him a send-off from the barracks at Ballycurragh which went far to cause poor Jones to consider whether, after all, life might not still be worth living, in spite of all things tending to the opposite conclusion.
The actual campaign against the Khalifa and his city was about to commence at this time – nay, had commenced, after a fashion; for the active brain of the Sirdar had for years been engaged in preparing for it, and though the British troops chosen to take a hand in subduing the Dervishes were only now setting out upon their mission, the campaign was, intellectually considered, rather beginning to end than beginning to begin.
Jones had met with little difficulty in obtaining the commission he sought as an officer in the Egyptian army. His reputation in the regiment was so good, and the recommendation of his colonel so strongly worded, that his application was among those considered as "likely" from the first. He was able to reply to all the questions put to him quite satisfactorily; but one of these especially, when addressed to him by the officer empowered by the Sirdar to examine would-be members of the Egyptian force, he answered with so much vigour and emphasis as to draw a smile from the colonel's lips, and to cause that gallant individual to form certain conclusions with regard to the youngster which were not far from being very correct indeed.
This question was, "Are you married, or engaged, or likely to become so?" To which poor Jones had replied without hesitation and with absolute conviction, "Oh no, sir; I am neither married nor engaged, and I hope I never shall be."
"What! a woman-hater?" said the colonel with a twinkle in his eye; "the Sirdar would be none the less pleased – "
"Not exactly that, sir," faltered Jones; "but – "
"Oh, I see," said the colonel, smiling kindly. "Well, I think I may say, Mr. Jones, that the Sirdar will be glad to give you an appointment as bimbashi in one of the native regiments. You will sail – "
And so on; the upshot of the interview being a commission for young Alaric Jones – who was but twenty-three years of age – as bimbashi, which is, being interpreted, major in the Egyptian army.
Know him, then, in future, as Bimbashi Jones, a title which pleased him greatly, and puzzled his people quite as much until they realized that the word stood for major; and when they became aware of this the knowledge acted as a wonderful consolation to them for his departure, for it was clear that the lad was "getting on" in his profession, and that he was destined to do great things. A major at twenty-three! It was glorious – unprecedented.
But Bimbashi Jones had a piece of outrageously bad luck at Cairo. He fell ill of fever, and was delayed for months; first nearly dying, then partially recovering, then suffering a relapse, and then wearily picking up his strength from day to day and week to week, while more fortunate individuals started southwards for the front. And already reports came to hand – from Halfa, from Abu Hamed, from Berber – of troops, English and Egyptian, marching and massing; of the Khalifa's hordes, which were expected at any moment; of Osman Digna, of Mahmoud, lying in wait, Heaven knew where, ready to pounce upon the advancing army, or more likely, some feared, to remain safely in ambush, and pretend to know nothing about the proximity of the Sirdar and his men.
Bimbashi Jones prayed heartily that the enemy might for a while be too frightened to show itself – at any rate until he should be able to join his regiment. After that, let Mahmoud and all his emirs become possessed with a new spirit – that of the irresistible desire to fight.
It was very trying, nay, maddening, for him to be left behind at Cairo; only think of it —left behind, and his regiment, it might be, at any moment distinguishing itself, and reaping glories and honours in which he could have no share.
What a confession to make to his friends in England! There would be a big battle, and, of course, a great victory for the Sirdar, at Berber, some said, or at Fort Atbara. Perhaps the struggle was going on at this very minute, and he must pass the rest of his life explaining how it had happened that he was not present and did not possess this medal and that. Bah! it was too bad!
Still, he was well now, and getting stronger daily, and the doctor had promised him that by the last day of February he should set out for the front, unless anything happened to cause him to modify his permission.
From that hour Jones determined that he would fret no longer, but consent, like a reasonable being, to devote all his energies to quiet recuperation. Soon there was but a week longer of waiting, then three days, then a day. At last the hour of his departure arrived, and with much good advice from the doctor, more good wishes from many friends, and a great quantity of luggage, some of which he hoped to convey, somehow, to the front, Bimbashi Jones launched himself against the Khalifa and all the hosts of evil, as represented by the Dervish masters of the Soudan.
His journey as far as Berber was uneventful. The railway was by that time finished up to this point, or very near it, and there remained but a day or two of camel riding between him and the army at Fort Atbara.
But what with the weakness which was the legacy of fever, or the weariness of the long journey down from Cairo, poor Jones was by the time he reached the terminus of the railway the very wreck of a bimbashi. He ought to have rested a few days at Berber. He was advised to do so by the garrison doctor there, but he laughed the idea to scorn. He had rested long enough at Cairo, he declared; he must go on and join his regiment.
"But there's no hurry, bless the man!" said the garrison doctor; "they haven't found Mahmoud; Heaven knows where he is."
"Mahmoud may find them," said Jones; "and I should like to be on the spot when he does."
"No such luck!" laughed the other; "that's what we should all like, but Mahmoud knows better."
However, Jones would listen to no advice. He hired camels for himself and his servant, and started in the cool of the evening to cover as much of the thirty miles or so which lay between him and the haven of his desires as could be done before the heat of the morning, leaving his kit to follow as quickly as blacks and donkeys would condescend to bring it along.
But more misfortunes attended the bimbashi.
Jones was very weary and half torpid with the heat of the past days. He fell asleep on the top of his billowy, bumpy mount, and presently, sliding off into the sand, lay and snored, with the Soudan for a bed, unconscious as a log, and so remained for some hours. His servant, dozing also on the back of his beast, which followed a score of paces behind that of his master, saw nothing of the bimbashi's collapse into the sand, and jogged past the place in which he lay sleeping, entirely unconscious of the accident.
As for Jones's camel, that sagacious creature was far too clever to say anything about the circumstance. It was pleased to be rid of its load, though recognizing the fact that the journey must be continued without him. Perhaps it had friends or an important engagement at Fort Atbara. At any rate, it continued its journey not less rapidly than before, keeping well ahead of its travelling companion – perhaps anxious to be asked no questions as to the load it had shot into the sand, for fear of being reloaded.
The servant dozed and waked and dozed again till morning, never so soundly asleep as to fall off his beast, yet never wide enough awake to realize that the bimbashi was not on the top of the camel looming in front of him through the darkness. Only when morning light and the on-coming heat thoroughly roused him did he become aware that his master was gone. Then the man, who was an Egyptian soldier, and had been invalided, like Jones, in Cairo, where he came in handily enough to accompany the bimbashi as servant to the front – the man Ali did the wisest thing possible. After weeping copiously and swearing at Jones's camel until that shocked beast careered madly out of earshot, he covered the remainder of the journey to Fort Atbara as fast as his own animal could be induced to go; and, arrived there, he greeted the first English officer he met, weeping and explaining incomprehensibly.
"Stop blubbering, you pig," said the subaltern, "and say what you want."
"O thou effendim," cried Ali, drying his tears with marvellous suddenness, "I have lost my bimbashi – Bimbashi Jones!"
Explanations revealed that the man had, in truth, started from Berber in company with an English bimbashi, and that the bimbashi's camel had certainly arrived, but not the bimbashi.
A search-party was therefore sent back without delay, but unfortunately a high wind had risen during the morning, and a dust storm was now in full blast, so that though the party thoroughly searched the road on both sides as far as Berber, taking two or three days over the job, and duly execrating the object of their search for possibly losing them the chance of being present at the big event – namely, the battle with Mahmoud, now expected daily – they found no trace of poor Bimbashi Jones.
They returned, therefore, empty-handed, and returned, as it chanced, just in time to have a hand in certain great events which were about to take place on Atbara River.
Meanwhile Bimbashi Jones slept very soundly and dreamed very absurdly. He dreamed that he had arrived at Atbara in the nick of time. A terrific battle had raged for many hours, and the result up to the moment of his arrival had been most disastrous to the Anglo-Egyptian forces. The Khalifa himself and two of his emirs, hearing of the bimbashi's approach, had personally pursued the hero almost up to the muzzles of the British guns, in order to prevent the great disaster to their hosts which his arrival among the British and Egyptian forces would be sure to entail. He would lead them, the Khalifa knew, to victory, once he placed himself at their head, and triumph would at the last moment be snatched from his hand. For, indeed, every English officer from the Sirdar to the youngest subaltern of a British regiment was already either killed or incapacitated. Our troops were on the point of collapsing. Already the Soudanese and Egyptian regiments were throwing down their rifles and looking over their shoulders for the safest point of the compass, with an eye to successful flight. Far away on the left a long line of hussars disappeared in the dim distance, pursued by countless hosts of Bagghara horsemen, shouting "Allah," and shaking spears like leaves in the south-west wind. English sergeants went along the lines with tears in their eyes, crying like babies, entreating, imploring, threatening; the Sirdar sat with his back to a gun-carriage, badly wounded.
"Is that you, Bimbashi Jones?" he cried faintly. "Thank Heaven! hurrah! We shall save the show yet. – Orderly, ride round and spread the news quickly; say Bimbashi Jones is here and about to take the field. Let the enemy know it too; let Mahmoud know it – the rascal! He would attack us before Jones could arrive, would he?"
The effect of the news was electric – nay, magic! From company to company, from regiment to regiment, from brigade to brigade, the word went round. Then a low murmur began to spread; it grew and grew; like the sound of the wind in the tree-tops it widened and thickened, until the whole air was cleft and shivered with the mighty roar that spread from end to end of the battle plain. "Bimbashi Jones has arrived! The bimbashi has taken the field! Die, Dervishes, like dogs!"
And a wail, like the cry of a million souls in torment, rose from the Dervish ranks. "The bimbashi has come! We are lost! Run for your lives, ye servants of Mohammed, for your lives!"
The Khalifa heard it as he sat and trembled in his palace at Omdurman, to which he had quickly returned, seeing that the bimbashi had escaped him. (Jones, it will be observed, had, like most dreamers, annihilated time and space.) The Khalifa ordered his best white Arab steed, and mounted it, and rode forth to learn what the noise was about. Jones met him as he and his troops chased the Dervish host towards Khartoum, and shouted to him to yield.
"I surrender to no one but the Sirdar or Bimbashi Jones!" cried Abdullah, who, during the late pursuit, had not caught sight of the hero's face.
"You are too young to be either of these great men. – Allah! Allah! Turn and strike, sons of the Prophet! down with the dogs!"
His followers whispered to the Khalifa.
As when rude Boreas, suddenly remembering that he is due in another portion of the globe, ceases abruptly to beat the tortured sea into foam, and a beauteous calm overspreads the waters of the storm-tossed ocean, so suddenly the countenance of the Khalifa changed from rage and defiance to an expression of timorous incredulity.
"Impossible!" he muttered – "so young, and so great a general!"
"Undoubtedly it is Bimbashi Jones!" said an emir.
Jones heard him quite distinctly.
"Yes, I am Bimbashi Jones," he said; "yield, Abdullah; there is no other course. Yield or perish!"
"You will not cut off my right hand and ear?" asked the Khalifa.
"Certainly not, richly though you deserve it," said Jones.
"Nor my left?" added the Khalifa quickly, glancing cunningly in Jones's face.
The bimbashi disclaimed any such intention.
Then the Khalifa surrendered, placing his sword in Jones's hands with the inimitable grace of a cavalier of olden time; which circumstance, however, did not strike the bimbashi as in any degree strange, but only highly decorous and proper.
And now telegrams of congratulation poured in. Every one of the wounded British officers quickly recovered; even several whom the bimbashi knew to have been killed turned up again (without causing him any surprise) to shake the hero by the hand. In the gilded halls of Omdurman he was the admired of all beholders. The ladies vied to dance with him, though none of them explained how they got there; while the men spoke of impending promotions, peerages, and what not.
As for the Khalifa, he sat next to Bimbashi Jones at supper, and did his very best to convert the young man to Mohammedanism; and to everything that the Khalifa advanced, the Sirdar, sitting on Jones's left, would remark, —
"There's a good deal in what the old boy says."
There was indeed, Jones thought, for – and this was the only circumstance in the whole affair that caused him some surprise – the Khalifa simply preached at him a sermon which Jones's own father (Vicar of Stoke Netherby, Yorkshire, and certainly not a follower of the Prophet) had delivered from his own pulpit on the very last Sunday that the bimbashi had spent in the old home.
"Why," he remarked, when the Khalifa had quite finished, "you are a pious fraud, my good man. Are you aware that you have stolen that sermon, word for word, from my own father, who preached it – "
"Bimbashi Jones – Alaric, my boy – don't you know me?" said the Khalifa very gushingly; and Jones was just about to recognize his parent, whom indeed the Khalifa promptly declared himself to be in very flesh, and to rush to his arms, when he awoke, and the whole thing was spoiled, the dream ending and the curtain falling upon a highly-dramatic situation, somewhat mysterious withal, and left entirely unexplained. Poor Bimbashi Jones was now no longer the victorious preserver of the honour of England and the safety of Egypt; he was but his own unfortunate self, a forlorn piece of jetsam cast ashore upon the sand-ocean of the Soudan, with sand-scud flying like solid sea-spray, and filling his eyes and nose and mouth and clothes, blotting out tracks and directions, and reducing poor Jones to a condition of great misery and wretchedness. He would have felt even more wretched had he realized that, by falling off his camel and sleeping on while it walked away, he had landed himself in a very serious position indeed. He was in the midst of a sand-storm.
The bimbashi stood and raged, shouting for his servant Ali, upon whose head he showered many useless abuses and sundry flowers of speech.
But Ali was far away by this time, and so was Jones's camel; and after waiting for half an hour or more, the lost youth decided that he must make a guess at the direction to be pursued, and at any rate keep moving, even though he followed a wrong course; better that than be buried alive in the abominable moving desert of flying and stinging sand.
It was only natural that Jones's guess as to the direction in which lay Atbara should be somewhat out; it would have been strange indeed if he had guessed right. As a matter of fact, his attempt to do so was by no means a bad one; for, had he directed his steps but a point or two less towards the east, he would have hit off the English position nicely, and would soon have encountered the search-party which presently came out to find him, or have been overtaken by some other friendly company hurrying forward from Berber towards the scene of operations at the junction of Atbara and Nile.
Luckily Jones had sandwiches in his pocket, though he would rather have had a gallon or two of water. The drop or so of whisky in his flask did nothing to assuage his thirst. His throat was parched with the sand, his tongue dry and hot and gritty. He could scarcely see; his ears were clogged. Jones plodded along, now praying for help in his most serious plight – he knew that it was serious, though he scarcely realized perhaps how serious; now recalling his dream and laughing at it; now thinking of every conceivable thing that would serve to blot out the disagreeable present, if but for a few minutes.
Meanwhile the sun had come out, and was blazing away in a manner which made life under its direct rays an unpleasant and almost impossible function. Soon it became unbearable. The wind had dropped, and the sand ceased to fly – a mercy for which Jones felt devoutly grateful. But the heat! The poor lost bimbashi scooped a hole in the ground, piling the displaced sand as high as he could, and lying behind it, in order to get a little shade for his face; and there he lay and sweltered until the sun climbed too high, and drove him out of his shelter. Then he travelled on, his brain on fire, until the burning disc above him had sunk sufficiently to allow him to repeat his expedient of earlier in the day; and now he lay half asleep, half comatose, until the cool of evening revived him, and he rose and plodded forward once more.
"I shall go on till I drop, anyway!" soliloquized Bimbashi Jones, like the brave man he was; and then, because he was still a very young man, and because he felt, as any one justly might do under the circumstances, extremely sorry for himself, he shed a few tears of pity over the melancholy fate which impended. "I might have done rather well," he reflected. "I had made a good start – every one said so; but misfortune dogs me wherever I go!" and Jones thought of his disappointment in England, of his illness at Cairo, of this crowning disaster; and he shed a few more consoling tears.
That night Jones, plodding obstinately forward, stumbling, weary, only half conscious, nearly dead with thirst, struck suddenly into country of a different character from the unbroken sand plain through which he had been travelling up to this moment. There was scrub to be pushed through, mimosa bushes, and other greenery.
"Thanks be to God!" exclaimed the bimbashi, for even his baked brain was able to comprehend the significance of the change. "I am coming to the Nile!"
It was not the Nile but the Atbara which Jones had struck well above the Anglo-Egyptian portion; but, oh! the joy of that first big drink of nasty water, and the long-continued, delicious sluicing of the burning head, wherein the fire had raged without ceasing for a twelve-hour round, and would scarcely now be extinguished even though Jones would bring the whole flood of the Atbara to bear upon it.
Then Jones finished his sandwiches and felt a man once more, though a weary one. He thanked Heaven for mercies received, and lay down to sleep until wakened by – yes, actually by the cold. He must move on.
How different the travelling was now! He would not leave the river again, the wanderer wisely resolved. He would follow it until the British position was reached; it could not be far now.
Poor bimbashi! The British fort lay behind him, and he was speeding away in the wrong direction – into the arms, indeed, of Mahmoud, had he only known it.
Part of the night he pushed forward, and part of it he rested and slept.
"It's a ghastly long journey when one does it on foot," thought the lost bimbashi. "However, I shall be in camp by breakfast time;" and his mouth watered over imaginary repasts of tinned meats and tea and other delights.
Morning came, and the sun, and still there were no signs of the camp. Jones was very hungry, but the tinned delicacies were still the fair offspring of imagination, which filleth not the stomach.
He travelled on, in despite of the sun, for the camp could not now be far off; and he would have continued to plod forward until he dropped, but that he received before noon a terrible fright, which sent him into cover for many hours of dangerous daylight.
There were sounds of hoofs, and the soul of the bimbashi rejoiced. "It is some of our fellows doing a cavalry reconnoitre," he reflected; and when they came, as he judged by the sound, within earshot, he treated them to a "coo-ee," and stood up to look out for a view and to hear their reply.
Presently the troop passed across an open patch between mimosa bushes, and Jones saw, not hussars or lancers, but a number of Bagghara horsemen pushing rapidly upstream, and evidently looking about for the owner of the voice lately upraised.
Down bobbed Jones behind a mimosa bush, his heart beating loudly. He drew his revolver in case of accidents. Would they see him? if so —
There were ten men, dirty, savage-looking fellows. They wore white, patched, linen garments, which fluttered behind them, and carried spears. They passed within twenty paces, peering about, and repassed again fifty yards away, talking together and arguing; then they disappeared.
"Thank God for that!" thought the bimbashi. "One wouldn't care to be chewed up by a set of such forsaken-looking fellows at close quarters!"
So he lay low till dark, and then pushed on once more – desperately hungry now, nearly starving. Would that breakfast never come? Could he have made some mistake? Ought he to have gone downstream?
Reason said no – upstream undoubtedly. But, you see, the bimbashi's geography was imperfect, and he was not aware of the existence of the Atbara, as a river, or he had forgotten it. He only knew of Fort Atbara; he thought he was following the Nile.
So Jones tried to satisfy the cravings of his appetite by chewing leaves and grasses, failing utterly; and long before morning came he sank exhausted to the ground, assuring himself that he could not possibly walk another yard.
Then, or soon after, a wonderful thing happened.
The dozing bimbashi heard in his dreams the droning of bagpipes, the sharp notes of the bugle, the dull booming of guns. His old dream began to flutter vaguely through his brain. He was the conquering hero again; he had put the Dervishes to flight; he had – but the noise was too loud for dozing and dreaming, and he awoke with a start.
"Good Heavens!" said poor Jones, half demented with weakness, "it is really the battle; my dream is coming true."
The firing increased; it became almost continuous; it could scarcely be more than a mile or two away. The noise deafened and bewildered the youth, who was, as a matter of fact, in extremis.
Jones listened a little while. Then he started to his feet and rushed madly towards the din.
"I must have a hand in it!" he cried; "they may want me!"
A mile and a second mile the bimbashi covered, now running, now forcing his way through dense scrub, now stopping a moment to recover breath. He was very near the scene of operations now; the din was deafening. He had come up, though he guessed it not, behind Mahmoud's position. The entire Dervish host lay between him and the Sirdar's men. Already the British storm of lead was pouring over his head; already bodies of flying, frightened creatures, camp followers of the Dervish army, dashed by him, some close, some more distant. A party of these nearly ran over him, rushing blindly forward, jabbering to one another.
Jones fired his revolver in their faces. One of them, as he passed, swung some weapon at him, striking the bimbashi flat-wise on the shoulder. The thing was blunt, and made no wound, but it needed only a touch to send the scarcely animate youth upon his nose in the sand; and straightway upon his nose he went, dead as a log for the time being; and in the sand, half hidden by a mimosa bush, he lay, while the subsequent proceedings, to quote a great poem familiar to most of my readers, interested him no more.
When the bimbashi returned to conscious existence, the battle of Atbara, or Nakheila, was over. A great flood of escaping humanity had passed over and around him, fleeing for dear life, but he had known nothing of it. He was roused by English voices. A sergeant was directing his men.
"Look out there, Bill," said the sergeant; "see that chap doesn't let out at you as you pass."
"I'll cook him if he does," said Bill, blood-hot and savage. He had been struck at by wounded Dervishes, and was not disposed to treat treachery with loving-kindness. "Why," he continued, "darn me if it isn't an Englishman – an orficer, too. See here, Joe!"
The sergeant came and looked. Jones had opened his eyes, and looked mildly around.
"Good Lord!" said the sergeant; "you're right; badly wounded, too. Go back for an ambulance, Bill. – Hold up, sir; he won't be long. Are you badly hurt?"
"I want something to eat. I haven't had anything for three days," murmured poor Jones.
The sergeant was too amazed to reply.
"I'm Bimbashi Jones," continued the officer, "and I want my breakfast."