"For 'tis my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year."
And the lads laughed at the aptness of the "shiny night," for that was
evident to the dullest capacity. Thus encouraged, he tried a second
verse:--
"As the soldiers and the sailors was a marching to his lair,
Old Digna he was watching us, for him we didn't care;
For the bayonet beats the spear when he rushes on our square,
And 'tis my delight by day or night to beat the Johnnies fair."
Towards the end of the eight miles march indeed there was less singing
and laughing, for throats were dry and legs weary. What, in eight miles
and at night-time? Well, the next time you are staying at a sea side
place, where there is plenty of sand, you try walking along it, not
where it is firm, but higher up from the sea, where you sink over your
ankles at every step; if you can borrow a rifle and a hundred rounds of
ball cartridge and carry that too, you will be able to form a still more
just opinion; but, even without that, I invite you to consider how many
more miles of it you want when you have gone four. But if they were
tired and thirsty they were full of spirit, and it would only have
required the sight of an enemy to make them as lively as crickets again.
It was midnight when they arrived, and they bivouacked outside the
zereba in the square formation, every man lying down in the place he
would occupy if the force were attacked, so that if the alarm sounded,
he had only to snatch up his rifle and rise to his feet, and he was
ready for anything.
But they were not disturbed, and rested till noon on the 12th, when
dinner was eaten, and after it, at 1 p.m., they started once more to
find the foe. As you draw cover after cover to find a fox, so in the
desert you try watering-places when you are seeking game of any kind,
quadruped or biped. And thus information was obtained that Osman Digna
had a camp where all his forces were massed at Tamai, a valley well
supplied with the precious fluid, nine miles from the zereba.
Once more was theory knocked over by experience. If there is one thing
upon which most people feel quite confident about with regard to Egypt
and the surrounding country, it is that the atmosphere is always
perfectly clear, so that objects are only hidden from the eye by
intervening high ground or the curve of the earth. For, as you probably
know, anything on a (so called) level surface like the sea may be
visible if the atmosphere allows it for ten miles, to a man on the same
plane the shore say; but beyond that distance it gets so far round the
globe we inhabit as to be hidden. Of course the taller it is the longer
the top of it can be seen, as you will often perceive a ship's top masts
after the hull and lower spars have vanished.
Or, on the other hand, the higher the ground you stand on the further
round the earth's curve you can see; so that a man living on the top of
a high mountain has a longer day than one on a flat, since the sun rises
earlier and sets later for him.
But it was neither high ground nor the dip of the horizon which bounded
the view of those quitting the zereba, but a thick, grey, British haze,
which swallowed up everything a thousand yards in front, and out of
which the Arab hosts might pour at any moment. The order of advance was
different on this occasion, two squares instead of one being formed, the
right under General Buller, and the left being commanded by General
Davis. The guns were dragged with ropes by men of the Naval Brigade--a
tug of war with a vengeance. The haze being so thick would have made it
difficult to go straight for the enemy's position had the information
been as uncertain as was sometimes the case, but happily it had been
ascertained that if they took a south-west course they could not go far
wrong, and the compass came to their aid.
The cavalry marched in rear of the square, with the exception of the
scouts, who with the Mounted Infantry explored the ground in front,
preventing the possibility of a surprise. Tramp, tramp, mile after
mile, hour after hour, plodded the two brigades, with many a halt to
enable the man-drawn guns to keep with them. But tedium and fatigue
were thought nothing of. The man who would consider a five-mile walk
without an object a frightful infliction would think nothing of ten with
a gun in his hand, and the chance of game getting up every minute. It
is the same with all sports. How far across country could you run alone
for the mere sake of exercise? And how far in a paper-chase, with the
hare to run down and other hounds to compete with? Think how this
stimulating excitement must be intensified when there is an enemy in
front of you certain to fight well, and make you do all you know to beat
him. After awhile the haze grew thinner, and a range of hills loomed
through it in the distance.
As the atmosphere grew clearer these became distinct, and were seen to
be low, while a higher range rose above them beyond. On towards the
higher ground slowly moved the two brigades, with a total front of from
400 to 500 yards, the scouts spread in a cloud before them, and these
were now amongst the spurs of the lower hills.
Presently a couple of them came galloping back with the report that
these were clear of the enemy, who were massed further behind, and were
watching the English advance. And then a group of mounted infantry were
seen returning at a slower pace.
"Look!" cried Strachan, whose eyes were remarkably good; "they have
caught some natives."
And sure enough the troopers could presently be distinguished, coming on
in a semi-circle, driving before them a group of men who were unarmed,
and declared themselves friendly, or at least no adherents of the Mahdi,
Osman Digna, or any votaries of the new Mohammedan heresy. This might
be true, but the officer with the scouts thought the general had better
decide so knotty a point, and so they were thus brought before him,
travelling perhaps a little quicker than they were accustomed to, but
otherwise uninjured.
"That's the way to run fellows in!" cried Tom, enthusiastically. "A
fellow, you see, is bound to go straight when he has several rifles
pointed at his head in cold blood. There goes the interpreter. I wish
the colonel would just go up and hear what it is about, because he would
tell the major, and the major would tell the captains loud enough for us
poor subs to hear, perhaps."
"The colonel knows his duty," said Fitzgerald, "and does not intrude
upon the general unless he is sent for."
"I know he doesn't, but I wish he did," replied Tom. "However, we shall
get it all out of old MacBean."
And sure enough, soon after the captured natives had been pumped dry and
dismissed, the doctor rode up.
"No fighting for you, my boys," he said. "The Arabs won't meet you this
time, I expect, and you have had your walk for nothing. I expect that
they see that the sun will lick us single-handed, and they need not take
the trouble."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, at El Teb, you know, they kept their women and boys with them,
and these carried hatchets to kill our wounded with after the fight."
"That's their notion of surgery," said Tom, in a very audible aside.
"It goes more directly to its result than ours."
"Wait till you come under my hands, you young monkey! You will sing a
different song then."
"I have no doubt you will hurt me more than Mrs Arab would, doctor; but
then you would cure me, you know, and she wouldn't."
"Never mind that cheeky boy, MacBean," said Fitzgerald. "Why won't they
fight now?"
"Because they have sent all their women and boys away, and that, the
friendly natives say, is a sure sign."
"Curious; it is just the other way on with other savage people, who send
their families off when they _do_ mean to fight."
"But the Arabs are only half savages; and besides they are quite unlike
other people. Why, their lucky day is Friday, and their unlucky day
Wednesday."
"Yes," said Tom Strachan, "and Robinson Crusoe called his savage Friday,
and these fellows calls their Prophet Tuesday."
"Tuesday! What _do_ you mean?" asked Major Elmfoot.
"Mardi is the French for Tuesday, is it not, sir?"
"Strachan, you are really too bad, to make such execrable puns in the
middle of the desert."
"That is it, sir? I thought even my poor flowers of speech might be
welcome in such a barren waste!"
Soon after this the colonel was called up to the brigadier, and when he
returned he communicated what he had been told to his officers. The low
hills being found clear of the enemy, it was intended to occupy them at
once, and then if possible to advance upon the camp and the wells, and
carry that position before nightfall. But this depended on what
daylight they had, for rather than risk being overtaken by darkness in
an unfavourable position, it was determined to form a zereba and wait
for the advance till next day.
"It is just four o'clock," said Strachan, looking at his watch as he
returned to his company; "and surely there must be a fair chance of
carrying the wells before sunset, for I see a lot of the enemy on the
hills beyond. Therefore I shall risk a drink," and he put his water-
bottle to his lips accordingly.
"Hurrah! So will I," said Green.
"I have been fighting down the feeling of thirst for the last two hours.
Do you know," he added, after a refreshing and yet a tantalising
irrigation of the mouth and throat, "I have been haunted by a sort of
waking dream while plodding on in silence this afternoon. There was an
old man who used to bring fruit and ginger-beer to the cricket-field at
my school, and he has kept rising up in my memory so vividly that I
could see every wrinkle in his face, and the strings which kept down the
corks of his brown stone bottles as vividly as if they were before me."
"I wish they were!" cried Tom. "By Jove, what a trade the man might
drive if he could be transported here just now."
"Oh! And I have often scorned that nectarial fluid," groaned Edwards,
"or only considered it as a tolerable ingredient of shandy--"
"Silence!" cried Strachan.
"Don't utter that word, or I shall simply go mad. It is quite bad
enough of the exasperating Green to allude to the homely pop, though one
bore with it in consideration of the tender reminiscences of his
childhood; but human endurance has its limits."
Those who reckoned on carrying the wells that night were over sanguine;
when the rising ground was reached the progress of the guns was very
slow; indeed, it was wonderful how the sailors managed to drag them on
at all.
The atmosphere had now for some time become perfectly clear; and when
the infantry had surmounted the first hill they saw the broad valley of
Tamai, and on the hills bounding it on the further side, corresponding
with the somewhat lower range, where they stood, the enemy's lines were
plainly discernible.
There were multitudes on foot, and others mounted, some on camels, some
on horseback. The brigades halted, and the scouts pushed to the front,
to unmask the enemy's position.
"Do you think we shall get on to-night, sir?" asked Major Elmfoot of the
colonel.
"Not a chance of it," replied the chief. "But let the men lie still and
have a good rest before they begin making the zereba."
So they did; even the youngest and most curious had learned by this time
to husband their strength and snatch forty winks whenever they got a
chance.
"They are at it!" cried Edwards presently, as crack! crack! was heard in
front; and then a couple of volleys, followed by more single shots and
more volleys again, and then, when the work seemed getting really hot,
sudden silence. Some object had been obtained, but what it was exactly
regimental officers could not know till they read all about it in the
papers afterwards. However, the question of advancing that evening,
which had before been answered practically, was now settled officially
in the negative, and the order to make the zereba was issued. Mimosa
and cactus trees, many of them seven feet high, grew thickly around, so
there was no lack of material.
A position was chosen, protected on one side by a sand-hill, which made
a natural rampart, and then parties were sent out to cut and bring in
the cactus and mimosa bushes, and these were arranged round the space
marked out, forming a prickly barrier. And at the same time the ground
was cleared of cover where an enemy might lie concealed for from fifty
to a hundred yards in every direction, and that was space sufficient to
stop any number of Arabs rushing across it with steady rifle-fire. And
it soon became evident that this was no mean advantage, for heads were
seen popping above the nearest bushes, on the borders of the zone which
had been cleared, and it was evident that directly the scouts were
withdrawn the Arabs had followed up to the English position, and were
now prowling and prying around it.
As the wells could not be taken that night, and the horses could not do
without water, the cavalry retraced their steps, and rode back to
Baker's zereba, the point from which they had started in the morning.
When they were gone the enemy entirely surrounded the zereba, which was
like a ship in the midst of angry waves, hungry for her destruction.
While daylight lasted the men inside watched Osman Digna's seemingly
innumerable soldiers dodging about, and when night fell the knowledge
that they were there unseen, and might attack on all sides at any
moment, was really calculated to try the nerves. For there is nothing
more unpleasant than the idea of any one pouncing upon you suddenly in
the dark. But the nerves of our friends were getting pretty well
seasoned by this time. Only Green, who was very frank, observed to
Strachan that it seemed very lonely now the cavalry had gone. Mr Tom,
to tell the truth, had the same feeling of isolation, and even his high
spirits were rather damped.
"I will tell you what is lonely if you like," he said plaintively, "and
that is my last meal: it wants a companion very much indeed, and I could
find plenty of room for it, and for a gallon or two of water besides."
"Yes, indeed," replied Green; "if one had a good square meal well
moistened, one would feel, I think, that even the enemy were a sort of
company."
But food and water had run very short, and some of the men were faint.
The colonel made them a little speech; he was not an orator, but what he
said was generally practical.