MAC DISAPPROVES OF BEING LEFT
Mac felt fed up. The worst had come to pass. The infantry had gone
away and left them, the mounted men, to sweat and swear in the desert
till the war was over, and Heaven only knew when that would be. He had
been on fatigue to-day for not getting up until an hour after reveille,
and he was in no temper to be trifled with. A foolish non-com. had
taken the fatigue party to the wrong depot, where the O.C., opposed on
principle to a fine body of men wanting for work, saw that they were
not wasted.
After a morning's work, just as they were about to retire for lunch,
the peppery officer who had been foaming all the morning about his
missing men appeared and claimed them, and refused to dismiss them
before they had done his job as well. In the almost unbearable heat,
the party, rebellious and wrathful, had straggled off to the railway
station, where a heavy afternoon's work loomed before them. Saturday
afternoon too, and no dinner! Work! They didn't think! So they
retreated to a shady café, and, despite the expostulations of the
corporal, lunched upon the one satiating thing the place
contained--beer.
This did not fit them for an afternoon on a tropical day, so that, when
the zealous officer came at five to view the completed work, he found
only a collection of happy and sleepy warriors pleasantly reclining in
the shade of a tibbin stack. Awful threats fell unheeded upon them,
and the work remained undone. Further refreshed, they meandered
homewards, attempted vainly to maintain a comparatively straight line
while they were dismissed by an amused sergeant-major, and retired to
their lines to prepare for a Cairene evening.
Mac firmly resolved things had come to a pass when something dire had
to be done. He adjourned to the lines of another regiment, and
consulted, nay, intrigued, with his cobber. The result was that each
one's officer was approached by a trooper, who made clear the vital
necessity of his visiting the site of ancient Memphis and the Tombs of
Sakkara on the morrow. This was in the interests of his archaeological
researches, and he pleaded special leave. One officer only came up to
scratch, which was but a minor difficulty. Other means could be
resorted to for ensuring comparative safety. Military police and some
of the sergeants, especially if friends, were not averse to persuasion.
So it came to pass that eight o'clock the following morning found them
dodging military policemen and staff officers on a platform of the
Boulak station. They succeeded in ensconcing themselves in the
Alexandria express without much difficulty, the only incidents being
the upsetting of the equilibrium of a native railway official, a guard
or so, and a few porters. Alexandria at eleven. Their first act was
to satisfy their long-standing appetites. Then to the docks they went,
to fulfil, if possible, their mission, which was not archaeological
research, but to follow their infantry to the north. They searched
along the quays to see if any possibility offered of slipping aboard an
outbound transport. Alas, the only vessel there cast off while they,
barred by a hopeless line of sentries, gazed sadly on. They hired a
Greek sailing-boat, to investigate the vessels in harbour, but were
only marooned by him on an American warship. They would know better
next time than to trust a Greek and pay him first.
Relieved later in the afternoon from this predicament, the troopers
betook themselves once more to the French café, where, enamoured of the
mam'selle, time passed pleasantly. "Café, chocolate, and demoiselles
très bonne Oui." At any rate, if they had missed escaping from Egypt,
there were worse ways than this of spending the day.
Late at night, tired, piastreless, and with forebodings of the mat, but
happy and careless, they arrived back in Cairo. By devious ways they
reached their camp and their tents; and spread their blankets in the
open, under the stars. There was probably a large dose of fatigue in
store, and a few hours would see the rise of the sun over the
sand-hills to the east, the dawn of another day of heat, dust, flies,
and work. But they had given play to their spirits; and so, with the
philosophy of the average bush-whacker and stockman, they went
contentedly to sleep.