Harry Forsyth had put off the evil day as long as he could, but at
length he found himself forced to turn an apparent traitor to his Queen
and country, or else to give up the object of his journey when his
trials, dangers, and sufferings had been crowned with success, and
probably to lose his life into the bargain.
The detachment in which the Sheikh Burrachee held a command came to a
precipitous rocky mountain overlooking the Nile, and here they were to
stop the English advance. No position could have been more judiciously
chosen: the rocks looked down on a narrow gorge of the river still more
straightened by an island named Dulka, which it was determined to
garrison strongly with riflemen, and there was debate as to who should
undertake this duty. Harry hoped that it would be the tribe with which
his uncle had become associated, and of which he himself was now
supposed to be a member, because he thought it would be hardly difficult
to slip away down the stream somehow, by swimming if no other means were
to be had, and so join the English before they attacked, and avoid even
the appearance of being a partaker of his uncle's crimes. But this
chance was denied to him, and others went to the island, while the
Sheikh Burrachee and his men were posted in the steepest part, the very
citadel of this natural fortress.
To escape from there before the assault was obviously impossible. Up to
that time Harry had taken it for granted in his own mind that his
countrymen would carry any position they chose, with more or less loss,
and pass on, but he now began to fear that this one was really
impregnable. Parts of it were difficult to climb if unopposed, but with
an enemy with a rifle in his hand behind every crag and boulder, it
looked simply impossible for any living thing to make the ascent. Now
for the first time Harry Forsyth became an active hypocrite, for he had
only been a passive one up to this. He busied himself about to select a
good commanding spot in which to ensconce himself with his rifle with an
energy which delighted his uncle extremely. And so much was thought of
his shooting that he was sure not to be interfered with.
"Not a man of them can ever pass the Rackabit el Gamel by water, and
they can as soon take these rocks as scale the heavens. Here the
freedom of the Soudan will be worked out; the authority of the Mahdi
established!" exclaimed the sheikh. Rackabit el Gamel, or the Camel's
Neck, is the name of the gorge by Dulka Island.
When the sun rose on the tenth of February, eighteen hundred and eighty-
five, Harry Forsyth, from his lofty position on the heights of Kirbekan,
strained his eyes in the direction from which the British force was
expected to come. Nothing yet; yes, those red ants, as they seem in the
far distance, what are they? And there were larger black ants in rear
of them.
And now in the clearer light grey ants aligned with the red. The red
ants, had he known it, were the Black Watch, going into action in their
red coats and kilts; the grey were the men of the South Staffordshire
Regiment; the large black ants in rear were the guns. He did not know
these details, but he recognised English troops, not seen now for a long
time by him, and his heart beat high with excitement and hope. Now was
his chance of escape. Unless he were killed during the assault, or
taken prisoner and shot before he had time to explain himself, he would
surely be able to get away in the confusion of fight. Even if the
English were repulsed, he could feign pursuit and so come up with them.
Suddenly he saw both red and grey masses scatter out from their centres,
as they broke into extended order, and at the same time what he could
now distinguish as cavalry swept round to the right. It was a beautiful
sight. While he was gazing at it his uncle passed him in a state of
great enthusiasm.
He waved a rifle with his right-hand, and a banner, with texts from the
Koran inscribed upon it, with his left, and cried, "They come! They
come! The Lord hath delivered them into our hands at last!" And it was
with difficulty that he could restrain himself from forfeiting the
advantages of the strong position, and rushing down to meet the
advancing troops at once.
He had not long to restrain his impatience; the red and the grey lines
swept into the base, and were among the boulders in a trice. Then the
whole mountain side seemed to burst forth into flame and smoke, and from
his commanding position Harry could see that here and there an advancing
figure stopped, and came on no more, but dotted the ground with a
scarlet or brown patch.
The scene would have resembled a holiday sham fight but for those
figures which lay motionless, taking no further part, so orderly and
regular was the advance. Presently the combat entered on a new phase.
Unchecked by the storm of fire which had broken out upon them, the
Highlanders and South Staffordshire pressed steadily on amongst the
rocks; when there was room they squeezed between them; when this could
not be done they swarmed over them; still they pressed steadily on.
Steadily, indeed, but slowly. Behind each rock there was an Arab, and
when a soldier wriggled round it or swarmed over it, he found himself
engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict, in which, however, the bayonet
generally proved victorious over sword or spear. It was most
magnificent fighting; each individual man had to force his independent
way in the face of a deadly fire from hidden foes, at whose covers he
went straight. If he were hit there was an end of his course; but, if
he stood up, into the hiding-place where his foe lay concealed, he was
bound to go; and then, if he killed his man, as he mostly did, forwards
and upwards at another. There was no sense of support afforded by the
touch of comrades, and the being an item of a serried mass, as in the
case of the majority of the battles of the Soudan, fought in square
formation. Then there might be unsteady or pusillanimous soldiers,
whose faults were hidden by their firmer comrades, from whose presence
and example they gained confidence; but at Kirbekan every soldier fought
on his own account, as it were, and failure in courage or dash in any
individual would have been at once perceptible. But there was no such
failure, and the Black Watch and South Staffordshire fought as British
soldiers fought in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, at Alma, and at Inkerman.
Higher and higher they came, and the Arabs began to grow uncontrollably
excited. The Sheikh Burrachee came to the post occupied by Harry, who
immediately let loose his rifle at a fine rock near which there was
nobody. But he might have spared himself the trouble; his uncle never
noticed him; he only came there because the spot afforded the best view
of a portion of the English advance.
"It is impossible!" he cried; "and yet there they are. Has Sheytan
given them charmed lives?" and he charged down, waving his banner, and
calling on his tribesmen to follow him and extirpate the infidels.
Harry saw him falter on the brow of a crag, stretch his arms wide, drop
weapon and banner, and fall backwards. Forgetting everything else at
the sight, he ran down to him and raised his head.
He was quite dead.
"Poor Uncle Ralph! You were kind to me, and you loved my dear mother.
Would that you had met with a better fate!" he said, as he turned away,
and looked about for the means of escape.
There was no reason for further delay; the Arabs had too much to do to
look after themselves to notice him; and his uncle was dead!
Round the side of the rock he crept, keeping well under shelter, till he
found a side where no fight was raging, and here he clambered cautiously
down into the plain, and made for that part of the Nile where he had
seen the English pontoons and boats.
After about an hour's cautious approach, he came near enough to hail the
nearest sentry.
"I am an English prisoner, released by your attack!" he cried; and after
his report of himself had been carefully heard by an officer, he was
received with welcome and eagerly questioned as to what he knew about
the progress of the fight.
"Most of the points had been carried when I made my escape," Harry said;
"but I fear the loss has been very heavy."
Heavy indeed it proved when the full news came in! Colonel Eyre,
commanding the South Staffordshire, fell at the head of his regiment at
the first onset; Colonel Green was killed at the hottest moment of the
struggle; and shortly afterwards General Earle, the commander of the
expedition himself, was shot dead from a stubbornly-defended building.
Harry told his story, was examined, cross-examined, re-examined; for all
he had to say was most interesting, and very different from the meagre
and often contradictory reports to be gleaned from natives. He told
them of the force in Dulka Island. But they knew of that, and heeded it
not, finding no difficulty in shelling the Arabs there out of it without
an attack.
The only thing he was reticent about was the story of his uncle. Poor,
crack-brained visionary, he had gone to his account now, and what need
was there to recount his treasonable vagaries?
An old Harton boy is almost sure to find some mutual acquaintance in any
group of English officers he may fall in with in any part of the world,
and when at the evening meal he was chatting with his hospitable
entertainers, Strachan's name happened to be mentioned.
"What, Tom Strachan, of the Blankshire?" he cried.
"That's the man!"
"Is his regiment in the Soudan?"
"No, but _he_ is. He is an active card, and volunteered to act on the
staff, and has done a good bit of galloping business. I think he is
working in the Transport now, at least he was when we heard last from
Korti."
From this and all else he could gather Korti was the place Harry now had
to try and make for, and he was soon once more on his travels down the
river.
We will not follow his footsteps, since he met with no adventures to be
compared at all with those he had gone through. And very glad he was of
it, for the one thing he now dreaded most was delay.
He had not long been at Korti before he saw the very old friend he had
been asking after, and soon got an opportunity of speaking to him, busy
as he seemed to be.
"Don't you know me?" he asked.
"Know you! Of course I do, just as if you were my brother; but just now
I forget whether it is tinned meats or bullocks. By Jove! Is it
possible! Harry Forsyth! And how are you, old fellow? One would think
Korti was the centre of the world, for every fellow comes here. I say,
who was to know you dressed up like that? Well, and what are you up to?
Have you found that will yet?"
"Yes."
"Nonsense! And _got_ it?"
"Yes."
"You must tell me all about that. I was just going to get something to
eat; come along and share it. You have fallen upon the right boy for
grub, I can tell you; I am in the provisioning department just for the
moment, and there is no order against looking after number one."
"And you found your uncle who had turned wild man?" observed Tom
Strachan, as the two filled and lit their pipes after a capital repast.
"Yes, poor fellow!" answered Harry. "Without him I don't suppose I
should have got the will."
"And where did you run your Egyptian clerk to earth?"
"At El Obeid, and we got it out of him with the kourbash."
"Of course; you know the cynical saying here. As Nature provides an
antidote growing in the same district with every poison, all we have to
do is to learn how to seek it. So when the Egyptian was placed on the
Nile the hippopotamus was created to provide whips to rule him with.
But you must tell your story at greater length to-morrow morning to a
friend of mine who is lying wounded here, waiting for a chance to be
transported to Cairo. For I have a lot of things to see to; reports to
make out--you would never believe; and must run away presently."
Next morning Harry Forsyth called on Strachan at the time and place
appointed, and was taken by him to the hospital which had been
established near the banks of the river. They found the friend of
Strachan's they proposed to visit lying on a bamboo couch under an
awning, over which again spread a palm-tree. There was a pleasant view
of the river and the country, and altogether it was as cheery a spot as
could have been selected.
There was a visitor already with the invalid: a soldier who was standing
near, his head leaning on his rifle.
"I tell ye what it is," he was saying; "I'll say nothing about flesh
wounds and bullet wounds since it worries ye, but ye have the best luck
of it to be wounded at all, in my thinking. Won't ye be getting out of
this baste of a country at once, and shan't we poor beggars what's whole
and sound have to stop here and stew, and be ate up with the flies
entirely? I tell ye so long as ye aint crippled it's the best chance to
be a bit hurt, and get away, now there's no more fighting to be done.
And they say there will perhaps be some real fun going on in India, out
Afghanistan way, against the Rooshians; and we will be left here with
the flies and crocodiles. But here's the officer coming. I'll come and
see you again, when I'm off duty."
And Grady stepped briskly away, making the sling of his rifle _tell_
with a smart salute, as he passed Strachan. And then Harry Forsyth
stepped up to the couch, and found himself looking on the drawn and
pain-worn features of Reginald Kavanagh.
"I flatter myself that I have managed that with considerable dramatic
talent," said Tom Strachan, as he stood looking at the two, holding each
other's hands in silence, and looking into each other's eyes.
"Yes," said Harry Forsyth, answering the question in the other's look;
"I have found it, and it is here in my breast, all perfectly right."
"Yes, he has found it," echoed Strachan. "Where there's a will there's
a way, and the way in this instance was the kourbash. I hope the fellow
got it hot, Harry."
"Pretty fairly; I think Kavanagh would have been satisfied, though he
has been disappointed in his desire to wield the lash himself. Don't
you remember?"
"Well, all you have got to do now," said Strachan to Kavanagh, "is to
get back to England as quick as they will take you, purchase your
discharge, and enjoy your _otium cum dignitate_."
"Thank you, sir; if you will kindly say a word for me it will help,"
replied Kavanagh.
The little word _sir_ struck with strange harshness on Harry Forsyth's
ears. But, of course, Kavanagh was but a full private, and Strachan was
an officer, if he came to think and realise it. He had been about to
say:
"Here we three chums have met at last, ever so many miles up the Nile,
and I shall believe in presentiments as long as I live;" but he did not
like, after that word _sir_, to class his two old friends in the same
category; it might make an awkwardness, he felt.
"I do not like the idea of quitting the service altogether," said
Kavanagh.
"If we have this war with Russia they talk about, and I get well in
time, and can qualify, I wonder if I shall have a chance of getting a
commission. Surely it will not be so difficult as it was when I tried
before, and I nearly qualified. I wonder whether my service in the
ranks would be allowed to count in any way."
"It very well might," said Strachan; "for there are all sorts of chances
going when good men are really wanted. If not, you must go back into
the old Militia Battalion of the Blankshire, as I mean to do when I am
shelved; and then we shall get a chance of airing our medals, if they
give us any, for one month in the year at any rate."
"And what are your wounds, Kavanagh?" asked Harry presently.
"Sword cuts; one in the body is troublesome, but is getting better since
I got away from camel back, though sometimes I feel down-hearted,
progress is so slow."
"Oh, you must not give way to that sort of feeling," said Forsyth.
"Why, I lay senseless for months and months from a cut on the head; how
long I have no idea yet; I shall have to puzzle it out some day, but at
present it is logarithms over again to think of it. I should certainly
have died if it had not been for my dear old black nurse, Fatima, the
loss of whom is the only thing I shall regret in leaving this part of
the world. And if ever I come back, it will be to hunt her out and buy
her."
"Fatima! Come, now for a touch of romance, Harry!" cried Strachan,
laughing.
"Black as your Sunday hat in London; blubber lips, hair like coarse
wool; feet like canoes, and the best heart in the world, and--there she
is!"
It was true enough; Fatima was searching about, looking for Harry
Forsyth, just like a dear, faithful old dog. Ever since the episode of
the letter she had thought he wanted to go to his own people, and sought
how to aid him; after the fight at Kirbekan she lost him, and made her
way down to Korti, as the best place, so far as she could learn, to gain
tidings of any Englishman. The delight she expressed on thus
unexpectedly seeing him again was touching to a degree.
"You will have some one else to nurse now, Fatima," said Harry in
Arabic, pointing to Kavanagh.
"Your brother is my master; I will cure him!" she said, nodding
cheerfully to Kavanagh, and showing her white teeth.
"I am afraid Fatima would want to be nurse and doctor all in one, as she
was with me," said Harry, "and that would hardly agree with discipline.
But you might do worse than that, I can tell you. Meantime, what am I
to do with her, I wonder? Part from her willingly I never will. I tell
you, Kavanagh, you would never have had a chance of your money, if I had
not fallen into her hands, after I fell for dead in the wilderness; for
I should never have pulled through but for her. How astonished my dear
old mother and sister will be when I bring them a black servant! But
she will soon learn their ways."
"You are my good genius, Forsyth," said Kavanagh; "and if you will call
on the Principal Medical Officer, and other great authorities, I have no
doubt you will be able to help me to get away the quicker."
"I should like to go home with you," said Forsyth, "and will if I can.
Let us once get to Cairo, and I can raise any necessary money on the
strength of this," and he tapped the will on his chest.
"Would it be too great a presumption to ask to see this portentous
document?" asked Strachan. "I own to feeling some curiosity about it."
"Not at all." And he unwound it from its wrappings and produced it.
"And because a rascal clerk ran away with that bit of parchment,
Kavanagh had to enlist as a private, and you had to go wandering over
the world for years, leaving your mother and sister in poverty and
anxiety!" said Tom Strachan, meditatively. "People are always talking
about red tape in the army; surely there is still more of it in the
law."
"Oh, yes, naturally one would expect that."
"Ah, well, I hope he got it hot; I _do_ hope he got it hot! I will
introduce you to all the people who can help you, Harry, but I must be
off just now."
Forsyth got every assistance from the authorities to take his wounded
friend away. And his old connection with Mr Williams and the English
firm at Cairo stood him in good stead; so that he reached Cairo, and
embarked for England with Fatima and her patient sooner than he had
expected.