The Treasure of the Tigris Part 13

Edwards and I discussed in English the situation as it presented itself to us, and we each thought that our presence in Adiba was accountable for all the unpleasantness; that if, therefore, we removed ourselves, Ali Khan would patch up peace; and that in all probability he wished to get rid of us, but was unwilling to appear inhospitable and ungrateful.

"If," I said, addressing Haroun, "we accept the Governor's suggestion, will he then send an envoy and sue for peace?"

"No," was the reply, "whether you go or whether you remain, he will defend the town, and he will perish in its defence rather than humble himself before the Amir. You yourselves know that he is a man who, his mind made up, cannot be talked over."

"Well," said Edwards, "we cannot decide off-hand what we will do.

Besides, we should like to discuss matters with the Governor himself.

When do you expect that the town will be attacked?"

"The army," replied Haroun, "must still be some seven days' march from us, but the hors.e.m.e.n will ride swiftly, so as to intercept any fugitives, and it is therefore advisable that you should get away as soon as possible."

"Will you allow us the night to decide?" I asked.

"If it be your wish," he acquiesced; "but you should leave the town by dusk to-morrow."

As soon as we were alone, Edwards began to pace the room in silence, and continued to do so for some little time.

"You seem to be excited, George," said I, at last.

"You do not mind a bit," he replied. "In fact, as far as I can make out, you positively revel in this frying-pan-fire existence of ours. What are we going to do?"

"Why, stick it out, of course," said I, "and see the old man through his fight. I expect the whole thing will be rather interesting, and when it is all over we will begin to think of moving off."

"About time!" said Edwards. "I have had enough of this place, and should like to see another--Baghdad, for choice. It is not much fun spending all one's time prescribing for the rag-tag-and-bob-tail of Adiba, free, gratis, and for nothing. But we may as well turn in now, and interview the chief early in the morning. Perhaps the whole story of the impending attack is a deeply-laid scheme to get rid of us, though when Ali Khan told me to-day that I was his one and only physician, my heart positively sank. I thought he was under the impression that I was going to set up in Adiba, and remain with him for ever. I had intended disabusing his mind to-morrow, and I certainly shall do so, if I get the chance."

"You will not chuck him over until after the fight, will you?" I asked.

"No, I will play the game all right, though I cannot say that I am desperately keen about it," was his answer.

Next morning, when we went to see our host, we found that he took a much more serious view of the state of affairs than we had antic.i.p.ated. He evidently intended that it should be a fight _a outrance_. In vain did we try to dissuade him. We even offered to ride off and surrender ourselves to the Amir of Hayil, so as to stay the war; but he was adamant itself. He said that he and his people were growing rusty for want of a fight, and that our departure would make no difference.

Whatever happened, he would not rest until he had dipped his spear in the blood of his old enemies. Seeing, therefore, that argument was useless, we told him that we intended to remain his guests until he was at peace once more with his neighbours, and that we were ready to a.s.sist him in the defence of his town. He was greatly touched at our desire to help him, though he expressed his unwillingness to allow us to run the risk of losing our lives in a quarrel which was no concern of ours.

"The whole matter," said Edwards, "concerns us. Had we never come to Adiba, there would have been no quarrel."

"And," replied Ali Khan, "my son would have surely died. That is enough.

Praise be to Allah that he sent you to me."

Our conversation was interrupted by Haroun, who came to consult about the preparations for the defence of the town, and we accompanied the two warriors on their inspection of the fortifications. Haroun, I soon saw, had little idea of a pa.s.sive defence, and placed no confidence in the strength of the walls. He was a cavalry leader, pure and simple, and his sole notion was to employ all available hors.e.m.e.n in attacking the enemy as they advanced on the town. The Governor, on the other hand, was sublimely satisfied with his walls of sun-baked bricks, and proposed that when the enemy appeared, the gates should be barricaded and the walls manned by the matchlock-men; then, when the a.s.sailants had expended all their energies in attacking the walls, Haroun should issue with his hors.e.m.e.n, and smite them with vigour. This, he concluded, was the plan adopted by his father, half a century before, when Majma had attacked the town; and so successfully did it work that barely a handful of Majma's fighting men returned to their homes to tell the tale. The only thing that appeared to trouble him was the fact that he had been told that the Amir of Hayil possessed European weapons of war, presented to him by the Turks, and he had heard that the big guns had been known to knock down walls from distances beyond the range of his matchlocks.

It did not take me long to realise that, although I knew practically nothing of war, Haroun and the Governor knew considerably less. Neither of them had ever seen a field-gun or a rifle, and consequently they were absolutely ignorant of the effect of such things. To enlighten them was no easy matter, and for some time I was afraid that it would be impossible to bring the situation home to them until the first sh.e.l.l landed in the town. However, after much explanation, Ali Khan confessed that he did not understand anything of the inhuman practices of which I had told him; he and Haroun understood the honest warfare of the desert, but to attempt to fathom the mean devices to which the Turks and their adherents stooped was quite beyond them.

"Then," I said, "let us ride out unarmed to meet the Amir, and sue for peace."

"Never," said Ali Khan, firmly, "never. I care nothing for their tricks and stratagems. Our fate is already written down. On my side I have right; Allah protects the righteous, and punishes the oppressors."

I did not try to persuade him that might, in the shape of modern guns, was stronger than right; but I did all in my power to harrow his feelings by describing what it would be like when the sh.e.l.ls began to burst in and over the town. I could see, however, that he did not believe half I told him, and when we returned to the palace, he bade us leave him to himself, to think out how it would be best to frustrate the evil designs of his enemies. Edwards and I went off with the intention of occupying ourselves in a similar manner.

"Our friends," said Edwards, "seem to be a trifle sanguine."

"Antediluvian a.s.ses I call them," said I. "But look here, George, if old Hayil is bringing modern guns against this mud-heap, we are in for a pretty warm time. If his people have learned how to serve the guns, the place will be knocked to smithereens before we know where we are. If they have rifles, then our ancient matchlock-men will never get a look in."

"Surely something can be done to fortify the place," said Edwards. "They do not expect to be attacked for another six days or more."

"Yes," said I, "if we can only get Haroun and Ali Khan to grasp the situation, we might certainly work out some scheme of defence. I wish I had not forgotten most of the things I learned at Sandhurst. I might have run the whole show for them. Suppose we send for Haroun and hold a council of war; he is more modern in his ideas than the Governor."

Accordingly, we sent a servant with an urgent request to Haroun to come and see us, and then we began to talk. He was still absurdly obstinate about the use of his hors.e.m.e.n, and he quite thought that his seventy men, with the addition of some forty or fifty others which the town could muster, were capable of ambuscading the hostile army before they came near the town, and wiping it off the face of the earth. He had fixed on the very spot where he would lay in ambush, and he scoffed at the idea that it would be possible for his plan to fail. So convincing was he in his arguments, that both Edwards and I began to think that perhaps, after all, he was right, and that we were ignorant of the methods of Arab warfare.

"Suppose," I said, "you do not succeed in all you propose. Suppose you are defeated, or your retreat cut off. Then where would Adiba be? She would have lost the services of a hundred trained fighting men, and who would be left to repel the eventual attack on the town?"

"There are plenty of others for the purpose," said Haroun, "and the defence of the town walls is no concern of mine. As you are aware, I and my men have nothing to do with Adiba, and it is only my personal friendship for the Governor that has induced me to espouse his cause. To be honest, I am a child of the desert, and a friend of anyone who hires me. The role of my men is to smite in the open, and not to sit down behind the walls of a town--that is the duty of the town guard."

"I am beginning to understand," I said. "Hitherto I was under the impression that the Governor regarded you as his sirdar."

"He himself is sirdar," was the reply, "and he has already ordered every able-bodied man to be at his allotted post on the walls this afternoon, so that he may inspect them in fighting array."

While we were talking, a messenger came to ask us to wait on the Governor, who had a.s.sembled the chiefs of the various quarters of the town in the Audience Hall. We went at once, and found rows of respectable-looking old Arabs seated on the ground in front of the Governor's das. With many of them we were already acquainted, and all greeted us most cordially. The Governor then opened the discussion by explaining that, as Europeans, his two guests were thoroughly acquainted with the barbarous methods of European warfare, of which they themselves were entirely ignorant. He had therefore decided to beg us to undertake the defence of Adiba, and show them how to defeat their enemies. The suggestion quite staggered me; for I knew what broken reeds the unfortunate people were being forced to lean on. George Edwards, civil surgeon, aged twenty-three, Walter Henderson, ex-Sandhurst cadet--and a failure at that--aged twenty-one, suddenly appointed to the joint command of all the forces of Adiba! But, knowing that it was a case of the superiority of one-eyed men over the blind, we accepted the responsibility without a blush, and we were soon bustled off to inspect the fortifications and their defenders. Had it not been that we considered the state of affairs as most serious, we should have laughed at the whole thing as a huge joke. There were some rusty old guns and mortars, which probably had remained loaded and undischarged for half a century, and behind each loophole on the parapet squatted a matchlock-man, in deadly earnest and intent on slaughter. But it was no time for jesting, and, having seen all that there was to see, Edwards and I had a long consultation with our host and Haroun. In the end we two promised to think out a plan for defending the town, and lay it before Ali Khan the next morning.

We now went off with note-book and pencil, and walked leisurely round the whole extent of the walls, making notes and sketches at various points, and carefully examining the surrounding country. The town was of no great size, covering an area of barely half a square mile; and from outside had the appearance of a square fort, situated in a slight depression. The walls in most parts were some fifteen feet thick at the base, and stood about twenty feet above the general level of the plain, but were somewhat higher at the four angles, in one of which, as I have said, was situated that portion of the palace given over to us. There were four gateways, known as the Hayil, the Majma, the Bussorah, and the Baghdad, and placed each in the centre of one of the side walls, our quarters occupying the angle between the Hayil and the Baghdad gates.

From attacks by ordinary Arabs, armed with no better weapons than matchlocks and spears, the place had nothing to fear, the walls being unscalable, and the gateways being so planned as to be capable of great resistance. Against modern arms of precision it would stand no chance whatever, unless strenuous efforts were made to provide some sort of cover for the defenders, as well as for the women and children.

All that night we sat up, with pencils and paper, working out our scheme, which was simplicity itself. We decided that, as we might have to withstand a siege of some duration, and as it would be quite impossible to store sufficient fodder for horses and camels for more than a few days, we would send Haroun, in command of all the hors.e.m.e.n and camelmen, out of the place, with instructions to keep well away to the north, and to watch his opportunity for dealing a blow at the enemy.

We thought it would be useless to tie him down to stringent orders, since he knew more about the country and the methods of desert warfare than we did. Moreover, we knew that he was an independent individual, and would take his own line. With regard to the actual defence of the town, there was no time to do more than provide shelters from the bombardment which we antic.i.p.ated. These we arranged to place close under the walls which faced towards Hayil and Majma, and we went into all the details of each portion of work, so that we might be able to tell the Governor exactly how many men would be required for digging and such-like operations at every point, and how long they should take to complete the work. In order to have a good margin, we calculated to get the defences finished within three days, after which, any time that remained could be devoted to drilling the inhabitants to seek shelter rapidly.

"There," said Edwards, standing up and stretching himself, "that is good enough for them. I am quite anxious to see the result."

"So am I," said I. "Give me another cup of coffee, and then let us go up on to the roof and watch the day break."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE BURST OF THE STORM.

Standing on the parapet of our bastion roof, Edwards and I gazed out into the blackness which preceded dawn. Across the town, we saw presently a pale glimmer in the eastern sky. Day was breaking. We watched the light gradually spreading upwards; then, turning, we looked westward, where the outline of a low range of hills, a little more than a mile away, bounded the view. Each portion of that outline remains engraven on my memory, although, since that day, I have never set eyes on it.

The fitful light appeared to me to be continually altering the shapes of the rounded hill-tops. Want of sleep, I imagined, had upset my powers of vision; for the more I looked the more I became convinced that the outline kept changing. Edwards also had noticed the phenomenon.

"It is an extraordinary thing," said he, "but those hills over there look as if they were moving."

"Just what I was thinking," said I; "I did not like to mention it, because I thought you would say that I had got the jumps."

"I tell you what it is," said Edwards, shading his eyes with both hands, "there are people walking about up there. Look. Do you see them?"

Before I could reply, a bright flash shot out from the hill-side, followed by a volume of smoke and then a loud report; and simultaneously a weird shrieking noise rent the air. We saw the sh.e.l.l fall short of the town by a hundred yards or more, and, exploding on impact with the hard sand, send up a column of dust.

Never did sleeping town receive a ruder awakening; and Edwards and I, rushing down to see what could be done, encountered Ali Khan hastening to meet us.