WAR'S ALARM.
"What is the matter, Haroun?" I asked, "you seem perturbed."
"And small wonder," he replied. "The Governor's spies, whom he sent to
discover the whereabouts of his physicians, have just returned, and have
brought grave tidings. They tracked the men to Majma and then to Hayil,
where they found that the ungrateful dogs had spread false reports about
affairs at Adiba, denouncing the Governor as an infidel and a companion
of infidels. The Amir, ever credulous, accepted their statements, and,
moreover, gave all three of them appointments in his household. Majma
was ordered to prepare for war against Adiba, and to assemble all its
fighting men, three days since, at a certain ford on the road to Hayil.
The spies remained in Hayil and watched the preparations, which the Amir
declared were for the purpose of suppressing the tribes dwelling in the
mountains to the south. But this they knew to be false, and they have
ridden day and night in order to warn their chief of the coming storm."
"What will the Governor do?" I asked.
"He will fight his old enemy of Majma to the death," said Haroun. "On
that point he is determined. Moreover, he has ever rebelled against the
authority of the Amir, and he is prepared now to defy him."
"Surely," said Edwards, "that will be the height of folly, when an
explanation would probably prevent bloodshed. We two Europeans are,
doubtless, the cause of all the trouble. Let the Governor publicly expel
us from the town, and secure its safety."
"That course," said Haroun, "he would never consent to take; but he has
ordered me to inform you privately of the events that are likely to
occur, and to request that you will save yourselves while there is yet
time. He does not wish you to risk your lives by remaining here, and
though he cannot spare my services at present, he will mount you on
swift camels and give you a guide, who will conduct you to Baghdad, or
at any rate as far as some place of safety in the neighbourhood of that
city."
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 horsemen 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 anticipated. 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 assist
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 passive 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 horsemen 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 assailants had
expended all their energies in attacking the walls, Haroun should issue
with his horsemen, 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 shell
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 shells 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 asses 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 horsemen, 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 assembled 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 dais. 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 horsemen
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 anticipated. 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."