For Fortune and Glory Part 25

Fitzgerald came up, and the sergeant showed him the twisted bayonet. He was not easily put out, but the sight was too much even for his placid temper.

"Keep it, sergeant, keep it. We will see if we cannot get it stuck up in Saint James's Park with the trophies of captured guns, that the British public may see the weapons soldiers are sent out to fight with.

The man who is responsible for this, and the fellow who forged it, ought to be shot."

"_Forged_ is a good word," said Major Elmfoot. "To pa.s.s off stuff like that for good steel is rank forgery, and a worse crime than making bad money, for here men's lives are sacrificed by it."

"I wish we had some of 'em here!" murmured one of the men.

"Aye, and the triangles rigged up," said another, "I should like to lay on the first dozen myself."

And so say all of us.

This conversation took place after the earthwork was cleared of the enemy--at least of the living enemy, for the whole interior was crowded with their dead--and while the sailors and artillerymen were turning the two Krupp guns found in it upon the retiring foe and the ruins of the old sugar-mill to which the Soudanese still clung. And the troops had a little rest while the leaders determined the direction of the next attack. And the water-bottles you may be sure were mostly drained, for the men's throats were like lime-kilns.

An officer standing on the highest part of the parapet beckoned to Strachan, who doubled up and joined the group a.s.sembled there.

"Look," said the friend who had called him, pointing to the right, "the cavalry are going to have their turn." Sure enough, there were the three lines of cavalry, advancing at a walk towards the dense hordes of Soudanese who covered the plain, some retiring slowly and reluctantly, but the majority still holding their ground.

As they drew nearer the Hussars broke into a trot, and then, when quite close, they were loosed, and swept down on the foe at full gallop, a simoon of glittering steel. Surely the grandest sight the modern world can afford; the last remnant of chivalry. For ever since the invention of fire-arms the infantry officer's place in battle has necessarily been in rear of his men; but the cavalry officer still rides in front, yards in front. He believes that his men are behind him, but he sees them not. Alone he plunges into the enemy's ranks, and the first shock of the encounter is his. He is a knight without his grandsire's defensive armour, and exposed to rifle bullets and bursting sh.e.l.ls, which the old paladin knew not.

"Oh, to be with them!" cried Tom in his excitement, uttering what was in the hearts of all the group, as with eager eyes, parted lips, and breath coming short, they saw the line swallowed up in the sea of Arabs. A minute's confusion, with nothing distinguishable but the flash of weapons, and they re-appeared _beyond_ the ma.s.ses through whom they cut their way, prostrate figures marking their track, and were now serrying their ranks, disordered in the fierce pa.s.sage.

But the spectators could watch no more, for the sh.e.l.ls failed to dislodge the Arabs from the ruined mill, and it was impossible to advance and leave any such indomitable fanatics, who cared not for numbers and despised death, so long as they could wreak their wrath upon an infidel, in their rear; and the immediate business was to turn them out of that lair.

There were about a couple of hundred sheltered by the ruin and the old boiler; and for some distance round about the ground was regularly honey-combed with rifle-pits, each of which contained an Arab, crouching down, spear in hand, only desiring to kill an enemy and die.

It was said before that they swarmed out of the fort earlier in the day like bees when their hive is tapped. Like bees, too, when angered, they only sought to sting, though they knew that the act of stinging was their own destruction. As a soldier came to the edge of an apparently empty hole in the ground, a man would spring out upon him and transfix him before he had time to offer resistance. Not that this succeeded often.

The men soon learned to approach these rifle-pits with their muzzles lowered, finger on trigger, the point of the bayonet over the opening before they came up to it. Then, if the Arab made his spring, he was transfixed; if he kept crouching, waiting for the other to pa.s.s, he was shot. A large number of the holes became the graves they looked like before the boiler was reached.

Here the ma.s.sacre was horrible, for at that point the state of things was reversed, and the Soudanese were few in number, while the English were the many. And it was a revolting thing to have to shoot down and stab this handful of heroes.

But it could not be helped; they would not fly, and they would not surrender; and to endeavour to spare one of them was to insure your own death or that of a friend. It was even necessary to slay the slain, for they would sham and lie still, to spring up when the English had pa.s.sed and stab one in the back; then stand with extended arms to be shot, with a smile of triumph and joy, secure of Paradise since he had sent a double-dyed infidel, a disbeliever, both in Mahomet and the Mahdi, to his doom.

The old sugar-mill and the ground about it being at length cleared, the victorious square advanced upon the wells. The whole body of Arabs were now in retreat, dismayed at last by the terrible slaughter amongst their best and bravest; for the reckless heroism which is described, though there were so many hundreds of examples of it, as to ent.i.tle it to be fairly considered as characteristic of the race, could not, of course, be universal, or they would be absolutely invincible, except by extermination.

They were brave, every man and boy of them, but the vast majority were not mad fanatics; and, indeed, a certain number of the tribes engaged did not believe in the Mahdi at all, but joined him partly because he was the strongest, and partly because they hated the Turks--and to them Turks and Egyptians were all one--and their oppressive corrupt government, and the Mahdi had thrown it off.

But they were not prepared to commit actual suicide, and did not want to go to Mahomet's Paradise just yet. So, after a certain number were killed without gaining any advantage, they grew disheartened, and retired. And then the machine-guns sent their continuous streams of bullets tearing through the dense ma.s.ses, and volleys from the Martini- Henrys ran the death list up still higher, and the retreat became flight.

They marched steadily on. At the wells the Arab sheiks strove hard to rally their warriors, charging alone, and, in some instances, weaponless, to shame their men into following them. But it was no use.

"Tommy Atkins" was not flurried or excited now, success had made him firm and confident, and there was no wild firing. Every shot was aimed as steadily as if the charging Arab were an inanimate target and whoever came within that zone of fire was swept into eternity.

This was an expiring effort, and when two companies of the Gordon Highlanders had carried the last earthwork, with three guns and a machine-gun in it, the enemy made no further resistance, but left their camp, the huts containing the spoils of Baker Pasha's army--cut to pieces by them a month ago--and the wells in the conquerors' possession.

A well is a grand name for a hole in the mud, but the water was fresh and plentiful, and there were ten of them. It is difficult to keep the bands of discipline very tight when men are flushed with victory, wild with thirst, and water is before them. So, perhaps, there was a little crowding which defeated its own object, causing needless delay in obtaining the coveted water for all. But order was soon restored, and every one served.

"Shall we go on to Tokar to-night, do you think?" Tom Strachan asked his captain.

"I hope not," replied Fitzgerald; "I want something to eat, don't you?

Glory is all very well, but one cannot dine off it. Besides, it is absurd to cram too much of it into one day. If four hours' fighting, part of which was as severe as a.s.sociation football playing, is not enough for one day, I should like to know what General Graham would have."

The general was not unreasonable, or he thought it better to hold the wells. At any rate, the troops remained in the position lately held by the enemy, strengthening it in parts, after the men had had a rest, and bivouacking there for the night. Provisions came up from Fort Baker, and the officers of the First Blankshire had a good mess--tinned beef, chicken and ham, sardines, and other delicacies, with biscuit and tea, with just a taste of rum apiece to top up with.

A really useful invention is that of preserving fresh meat in tins. The man who found that out, and he who discovered chloroform, ought to go up to the head of the Inventors' Cla.s.s, in my humble opinion. I hope they made their fortunes. You may despise tinned food at home, when you can get fresh-killed meat and poultry not so overcooked. But go a long voyage, or even on a yachting tour, travel in wild countries for exploration, or to shoot big game, and then say.

And when they lit their pipes and lay round the bivouac fire, talking over the events of the day, what a time that was! The First Blankshire had not come off scathless as regarded men or officers. There was a captain lying yonder with his cloak over his face who would never hear the cheery bugle call again; a lieutenant was in the ambulance tent with a bullet in his leg, forcing himself to bear the pain without moaning.

And of those present, several bore gashes which would have been thought nasty at home, though after being dressed by the surgeon they were accounted scratches of no signification, beyond a certain smarting and throbbing. Green had a bandage under his chin, and going up on each side till his helmet covered it.

"No," he said, when asked if it was binding his self-inflicted cut of the morning; "it's the other ear. Curiously enough, a bit of a sh.e.l.l or a bullet, or something, has taken the lobe off; and as it would not stop bleeding, and the flies were troublesome when I took off my helmet, which hurt, I asked a doctor to look at it, and he put this thing on to keep the lint in its place."

"You will never be able to wear earrings, if they come into fashion for men, my poor Green," said Strachan. "But what is the row with your hand, Edwards? I did not see it was bound up in a handkerchief before."

"Ah, it's nothing; only a bite."

"A bite!"

"Yes. There was a poor little Arab chap, such a game little boy, with a small spear made for him, fighting like a bantam till a bullet broke his leg and knocked him over. He lay in the first earthwork, and I tried to give him a drink, but the little rat darted up at me and bit my hand."

"Have you had it cauterised? I do believe these savages are mad," said the major. "And what became of the varmint?"

"I don't know; we had to move on just then."

"That is the worst part of these Arabs, letting their children go into the ranks so soon. I hate to see babies made into little men and women.

If they must fight, let them punch one another's heads with their fists."

"I suppose, major, that as these Arabs are always fighting with one another, if there is no one else, it becomes a necessary branch of education."

"Well, at any rate," said Jones, who was learned in dogs--their training and management--and who, indeed, was known as Doggy Jones, "they need not 'enter' them to the British soldier. There are plenty of Egyptians for them to worry till they have come to their full growth."

"That is a curious thing about General Baker," said the colonel to Major Elmfoot.

"Yes, indeed, it is."

"Was he hit, sir?" asked Dudley. "I heard something of it."

"Yes, by a splinter of a sh.e.l.l in the face, just as we came under fire."

"But I saw him after that."

"Oh, yes; he got the wound dressed, and remounted, knowing how useful he could be, knowing the ground. But it is a nasty wound for all that, MacBean says. The strange thing is that he should have pa.s.sed unscathed through the hordes a month ago, when his troops fled and left him unprotected, and the chances against him looked a hundred to one, and get hit to-day; the odds were a hundred to one the other way."

"The most curious case of that sort was Sir Charles Napier," said the major. "He was one of the most unlucky men that ever lived in the way of getting hit. In every great battle in which he took part during the Peninsular War he was severely wounded. But at Meeanee and Dubba, where he was in command, and almost everything depended upon him, and where, too, he exposed himself in a manner which made the Sindhees think he had a charmed life, he did not get a scratch."

"I wonder whether those Indian fellows fought as hard as these Arabs?"

observed Green.

"Not much difference, I should say," said the major. "They flung themselves on the bayonets, and, if not mortally wounded, seized the muzzles and pressed them to their bodies with the left hand, to get one cut at their enemy and die. I don't quite see how _that_ could be beaten in the way of game fighting, though these fellows equal it. I saw one do much the same thing to-day."