P. C. Wren - The Collected Works of P. C. Wren - Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories

I felt a cad, and opened my eyes--almost into those of Mary, whose lips were just . . . were they . . . were they? . . .

"Yes, Miss," said Maudie, her eyes and thoughts afar off. "He is a beautiful gentleman. . . ."

"Hallo! the patient has woken up!" cried Mary, drawing back quickly. "Had a nice nap, Major? How do you feel? . . . Here, have a look into the cup that cheers and inebriates"; and she lifted a mug, containing cognac and water, to my lips.

I drank the lot and felt better.

"My heart come into my mouth it did, sir, when I saw you fall head-first off that camel. You fair splashed blood, sir," said Maudie. "Clean into me mouth me heart come, sir."

"Hope you swallowed the little thing again, Maud. Such a sweet garden of romance as it is! . . . ' Come into the maud, Garden! ' for a change. . . . That's the way, Major. . . . Drinks it up like milk and looks round for more. Got a nice clean flesh wound and no bones touched, the clever man. . . ."

I sat up.

"Get those camels further apart, Dufour," I shouted.

"Absolute focal point to draw concentrated fire bunched like that . . ."

Nobody must think that I was down and out, and that the reins were slipping from a sick man's grasp.

The men were eating dates as they watched, and Mary had opened a tin of biscuits and one of sardines.

"Hark at the Major saying his piece," a voice murmured from beneath a flowing kafiyeh beside me. "Isn't he fierce this morning!"

I got to my feet and pulled myself together. . . . Splendid. . . . Either the brandy, or the idea of a kiss I foolishly fancied that I had nearly received, had gone to my head. I ate ravenously for the next ten minutes, and drank cold tea from a water-bottle.

"There's many a slip between the kiss and the lip," I murmured anon, in a voice to match the one that had last spoken.

I was unwise.

"Wrong again, Major Ivan Petruski Ski vah ! I was just going to blow a smut off your grubby little nose," was the prompt reply, and I seemed to hear thereafter a crooning of:

" But among the most reckless of name and of fame Was Ivan Petruski Ski vah . . . . . . . . . . . . and perform on the Spanish guitar In fact, quite the cream of 'Intelligence' team Was Ivan Petruski Ski vah. . . ."

as Miss Vanbrugh cleaned her hands with sand and then re-packed iodine and boric lint in the little medicine-chest.

I managed to get on to my camel, and soon began to feel a great deal better, perhaps helped by my ferocious anger at myself for collapsing. Still, blood is blood, and one misses it when too much is gone.

"Ride on with Achmet again," I called to Miss Vanbrugh, and bade the rest mount. "We'll keep on now, just as long as we can," I said to Dufour, and ordered Djikki to hang as far behind us as was safe. In a matter of that sort, Djikki's judgment was as good as anybody's. . . .

Dufour then told me a piece of news.

A few miles to the south-east of us was, according to Suleiman, a shott , a salt-lake or marsh that extended to the base of a chain of mountains. The strip of country between the two was very narrow.

We could camp there.

If the Touareg attacked us, they could only do so on a narrow front, and could not possibly surround us. To go north round the lake, or south round the mountains, would be several days' journey.

"That will be the place for us, sir," concluded Dufour.

"Yes," I agreed, "if the Touareg are not there before us."

Table of Contents

That would have been one of the worst days of my life, and that is saying a good deal, had it not been for a certain exaltation and joy that bubbled up in my heart as I thought of the look in Miss Vanbrugh's eyes when I had opened mine. . . .

What made it so terrible was not merely the maddening ache in my arm that seemed to throb in unison with the movement of my camel, but the thought of what I must do if this pass was what I pictured it to be, and if the Touareg attacked us in strength.

It would be a very miserable and heart-breaking duty--to ride on and leave my men to hold that pass--that I might escape and fulfil my mission. How could I leave Dufour to die that I might live? How could I desert Achmet and Djikki, my servants and my friends? . . .

However--it is useless to attempt to serve one's country in the Secret Service, if one's private feelings, desires, loves, sorrows, likes and dislikes are to be allowed to come between one and one's country's good. . . . Poor de Lannec! How weak and unworthy he had been. . . .

There was one grain of comfort--nothing would be gained by my staying and dying with my followers. . . . It would profit them nothing at all. . . . They would die just the same. . . .

If the Touareg could, by dint of numbers, overcome four, they could overcome five. I could not save them by staying with them. . . .

But oh, the misery, the agony, of ordering them to hold that pass while I rode to safety!

How could I give the order: "Die, but do not retire--until I have had time to get well away"?

And the girls? Would they be a hindrance to me on two of the fleetest camels. . . . And perhaps any of my little band who did not understand my desertion of them would think they were fighting to save the women, whom I was taking to safety-- if I decided to take them .

But it would be ten times worse than leaving my comrades in Zaguig. . . .

How could I leave Mary Vanbrugh --perhaps to fall, living, into the hands of those bestial devils?

* * *

The place proved an ideal spot for a rear-guard action, and the Touareg were not before us.

Lofty and forbidding rocks rose high, sheer from the edge of a malodorous swamp, from whose salt-caked edge grew dry bents that rattled in the wind.

Between the swamp and the stone cliffs was a tract of boulder-strewn sand, averaging a hundred yards in width.

Here we camped, lit fires, and prepared to have a long and thorough rest--unless the Touareg attacked--until night.

Achmet quickly pitched the little tentes d'abri , fixed the camp-beds for the girls, and unrolled the "flea-bags" and thin mattresses, while his kettle boiled. It was a strangely peaceful and domestic scene--in view of the fact that sudden death--or slow torture--loomed so large and near.

Dufour himself ungirthed and fed the camels while Suleiman stood upon a rock and stared out into the desert. He could probably see twice as far as Dufour or I. . . .

" Into that tent, Major," said the cool sweet voice that I was beginning to like again. "I have made the bed as comfy as I can. Have Achmet pull your boots off. I'll come in ten minutes or so, and dress your arm again."

"And what about you ?" I replied. "I'm not going to take your tent. I am quite all right now, thanks."

"Maudie and I are going to take turns on the other bed," she replied. "And you are going to take 'my' tent, and lie down too. What's going to happen to the show if you get ill? Suppose you get fever? Suppose your arm mortifies and falls into the soup? . . . Let's get the wound fixed again, before those low-brow Touareg shoot us up again. . . . You'll find a cold water compress very soothing. . . . Go along, Major. . . ."

I thought of something more soothing than that--the touch of cool deft fingers.

"I'd be shot daily if you were there to bind me up, Miss Vanbrugh," I said as I gave in to her urgency, and went to the tent.

"Well--perhaps they'll oblige after breakfast, Major, and plug your other arm," observed this most unsentimental young woman.

"But, my dear!" I expostulated. "If I had no arms at all, how could I . . . ?"