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

"I win, Becque," I replied.

I would not rejoice over a fallen foe, and I would not express regret to a villainous renegade and a treacherous cur--who, moreover, had plotted the death, mutilation and dishonour of two white girls (and one of them Mary Vanbrugh ).

"It's a queer world," he mused. "You all but shot me that day, and I all but got you hanged. . . . The merest chance saved me, and luck saved you. . . ."

I supposed this to be the semi-delirious wanderings of a fevered mind. . . . But the brave evil Becque did not look, nor sound, delirious.

"What do you mean?" I said, more for the sake of saying something than seriously to ask a question.

"Ah--the brilliant de Beaujolais--Beau Sabreur of the Blue Hussars and the Spahis! . . . Bright particular star of the Bureau Arabe , the Secret Service, the Intelligence Department of the French Army in Africa! . . . You think you know a lot, don't you, and you're very pleased with your beautiful self--but you don't know who it was that turned your own men from downtrodden slaves into bloodthirsty mutineers, do you? . . . And you were never nearer death in all your days. . . . Do you know, my clever friend, that if those cursed Arabs had not attacked at that moment, nothing could have saved you--thanks to me ? . . . Do you know that your own men were going to hang you to the flag-staff and then burn the place and march off? . . . ' Another mutiny in the discontented and rotten French Army '! . . . Headlines in the foreign Press! . . . Encouragement to the enemies of France! . . . That would have been splendid, eh?"

I thought hard, and cast back in my memory. . . .

Most certainly I had never attempted to shoot Becque, and still more certainly I had never been in danger of hanging, at the hands of the gentleman.

In spite of his apparent command of his faculties, he must be wandering in his mind--indeed, a place of devious and tortuous paths in which to wander.

Silence fell, disturbed only by the droning of the flies which I whisked from his face.

A few minutes later the closed eyes opened and glared at me like those of a serpent.

"Beautiful, brainy de Beaujolais," the hateful voice began again. "How nearly I got you that day and how I have cursed those Arabs ever since--those black devils from Hell that saved you. . . ."

Delirium, undoubtedly. . . . I brushed the flies again from the sticky lips and moistened them with a corner of a handkerchief dipped in lemon-juice.

"And when and where was that, Becque?" I asked conversationally.

"I suppose the mighty warrior, the Beau Sabreur, the brain of the French Army, has forgotten the little episode of Zinderneuf? . . ."

Zinderneuf! . . .

What could this Becque know of Zinderneuf? . . .

Was yet another mystery to be added to those that clustered, round the name of that ill-omened shambles?

Zinderneuf! . . . Mutiny . . .

What was it Dufour had said to me when I ordered the parade before entering that silent fort, garrisoned by the Dead, every man on his feet and at his post. . . . ("The Dead forbidden to die. The Fallen who were not allowed to fall?"). . . . He had said " There is going to be trouble. . . . They are rotten with cafard and over-fatigue. . . . They will shoot you and desert en masse! . . ."

Could this Becque have been there? . . . Utterly impossible. . . .

Again I thought hard, cast back in my memory, and concentrated my whole mind upon the events of that terrible day. . . .

Dufour was there, of course. . . .

Yes, and that excellent Sergeant Lebaudy, I remembered, the man who was said to have the biggest voice in the French Army. . . .

And that punishing Corporal Brille whom I once threatened with a taste of the crapaudine , when I found him administering it unlawfully. . . . I could see their faces. . . . Yes. . . . And that trumpeter who volunteered to enter that House of the Dead. . . . Of course . . . he was one of the three Gestes, as I learned when I went to Brandon Abbas in England to be best man at George Lawrence's wedding. . . . Lady Brandon was their aunt. . . .

Yes, and I remembered two fine American soldiers with whom I spoke in English--men whom I had, alas, sent to their deaths by thirst or Arabs, in an attempt to warn St. André and his Senegalese, that awful night.

I could recall no one else. . . . No one at all. . . .

"And what do you know about Zinderneuf, Becque?" I asked.

His bitter sneering laugh was unpleasant to hear.

"Oh, you poor fool," he replied. "I know this much about Zinderneuf--that you nearly stepped into your grave there. . . . Into the grave that I dug for you there. . . . However, this place will do equally well."

With my mind back in Zinderneuf, I absently replied:

"You think I shall find my grave here , do you, Becque?"

"I most earnestly hope so," replied Becque. "I truly hope, and firmly believe, this Emir will do to you and your women what I have urged him--and tried to bribe him--to do."

I kept silent, for the man was dying.

"You are not out of the wood yet, Beautiful de Beaujolais, Beau Sabreur," the cruel, bitter voice went on. . . . "My colleague has a brain--if he hasn't much guts--and he has money too. And the power to put down franc for franc against you or anybody else, and then double it. . . . Oh, we shall win. . . . And I'd give my soul to survive to see the hour of success--and you impaled living on a sharpened palm-trunk and your Secret Service women given to the Soudanese soldiers . . . ."

I bit my lips and kept silence, for the man was surely dying.

§ 4

In spite of the considered opinion of which Miss Vanbrugh had delivered herself, I am a humane man, and if I fight my foe as a soldier should fight him, I try to be sans rancune when the fight is over.

While Becque was awake and conscious, I would sit with him, bear with his vileness, and do what I could to assuage the sufferings of his last hours. . . . Sometimes men change and relent and repent on their death-beds. . . . I am not a religious man, but I hold tenaciously to what is good and right, and if approaching death brought a better frame of mind to Becque, I would do everything in my power to encourage and develop it. . . . I would meet him more than half-way, and if his change of heart were real, I would readily forgive him, in the name of France and of Mary Vanbrugh. . . .

"Well, Becque," I said, "I shall do my best against your colleague--and I would give a great deal to survive to see the hour of success, and you, not impaled living, but speeded on your way, with a safe conduct, back to whence you came."

"You mealy-mouthed liar," replied my gentleman "You have killed me, and there you sit and gloat . . . ."

"Nonsense, Becque," I replied. "I am glad I won the fight--but I'd do anything I could to help or ease or comfort you, poor chap. . . ."

"Another lie, you canting hypocrite and swine," Becque answered me.

"No," I said. "The simple truth."

"Prove it, then," was the quick answer.

"Well?" I asked, and rose to get him anything he wanted or to do anything that he might desire.

"Look you, de Beaujolais," he said, "you are a soldier. . . . So am I. . . . We have both lived hard--and my time has come. . . . Nothing can possibly save me--here in the desert without surgeons, anæsthetics, oxygen, antiseptics--and I may linger for days--wounded as I am. . . . I know that nothing on God's earth can save me--so do you. . . . Then let me die now and like a soldier. . . . Not like a sick cow in the straw. . . . Shoot me, de Beaujolais. . . ."

"I can't," I replied.

"No--as I said--you are a mealy-mouthed liar, and a canting hypocrite, full of words and words . . ." answered Becque; and then in bitter mockery he mimicked my " I'd do anything I could for you, poor chap! . . ."