THE STRAITS
IMPREGNABLE

THE STRAITS
IMPREGNABLE

BY SYDNEY DE LOGHE

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1917

All Rights Reserved

TO
THE FIRST AUSTRALIAN DIVISION

This Book,
Written in Australia, Egypt and Gallipoli,
is true.

CONTENTS

THE
STRAITS IMPREGNABLE

CHAPTER I
THE CALL

The afternoon was wearing out, and I began to think of home and tea. I stopped working, straightened my back, ran moist fingers through my hair, and sat down on the log. The axe went tumbling to the ground. “Watch-and-pray” and “Wait-and-see” got up from the fallen gum suckers, and trotted forward with waving tails and glistening, slippery tongues. I made haste to get rid of them. They began to play, biting ears and growling, but went back at last, laid keen black heads on narrow paws and watched me out of grave brown eyes.

To Gippsland spring had come. The day had been a day of spring until evening beckoned afternoon away. Now a little breeze—gentle, but rather cold—came out of the west and wandered through the tops of the gum suckers. The scent of eucalyptus came with it; and behind it followed the voices of countless rustling leaves. It moved among the wattle tops where they wound along the river; it moved across the rape crops and over the grassy flats beyond. It bent the sedges in the lagoons where the first black ducks were feeding, and where, on warmer nights, big eels bubbled below the sunken logs. I raised my forehead to the cool; and, lo! the breeze had gone!

Through the rape crop sheep were streaming. Anxious ewes pulled hurriedly at the broad green leaves or watched with care their frolicking youngsters. On the flats, round the salt trough, the bullocks chewed and meditated. Smoke climbed up by the river bend; and outside her cottage moved Mrs. Pigg, bringing in the washing, pulling vegetables, feeding the fowls. Small and busy the distance showed her.

Behind me, and on either side, the suckers pushed up their heads. High over them leaned spectral trees: blackened, leafless, stripped of bark, weary with long waiting. About the ground great trees had fallen: grim logs—knotted logs—logs scarred with the breath of summer fires. Here and there showed feeding sheep; and this way and that way ran well-worn pads leading to the waterholes in the wattles. Over the hillside spread a faint green carpet where was shooting the young grass.

Out from hidden gullies floated cries of sheep. Mournfully they travelled across the hillside—now the voice of a ewe whose lamb had strayed, now a lamb hungry and alone. Other sights and sounds began to fill the evening. Small finches came hopping into the suckers, dodging and peeping and swinging through the boughs, and preening themselves between the leaves. Gay was the twittering as the hunt for supper went forward. Then a jackass swooped into a tree top, threw up tail, raised high head and pealed out frenzied laughter. Other tree tops joined the madman chorus. Next a magpie hopped upon the big log and glinted an evil eye at me; and then forgot me to ruffle sombre shoulders, and join the evening hymn.

The sun was on the horizon, and shadows moved quickly across the lower lands. First they filled the reedy lagoons, the big wattle groves, the belts of scrub. They moved from bramble bush to grass tussock, from fallen log to waterhole. Faint wisps of fog rose about the river. It was late; I was hungry; it was time for home.

I put out a hand for my coat, picking up the axe as well; and “Watch-and-pray” and “Wait-and-see” sprang forward with glad barks. I pushed them off and got up.

“Hullo there, Guv’nor,” a harsh voice shouted from the ruined gate, and old Scottie came through the gap on his ancient chestnut mare. The long sunbeams shone upon his weather-beaten face, with its broken yellow teeth and small hard beard. He wore an ulster, with a sugar-bag hanging out of the pocket. In the bag he had dived a horny hand, and now it came out filled with letters and papers. “Here you are, Guv’nor,” he shouted again.

I went forward and took the packet, picking out all that belonged to me. What was left I handed back. “There are one or two for the Piggs,” I said. “You might take them over.”

“Right-o, sir,” he answered, and pulled the old mare round, and started away at a jog-trot. Through the suckers man and beast disappeared—an elderly man and a very elderly beast.

I leaned against the gateway and opened the letters. There was news from home, telling of weather five weeks old, and a garden party older yet. Still I read it all twice. An agent had written of some bullocks, and there was a third note about sheep. I pushed everything into my coat pocket, and picked up the papers. Four were there—I had not been to the township for a day or two. I opened the oldest of them, dated four days ago, and turned the pages in a hurry—I was hungry and thinking of tea.

But I forgot tea. Across the middle leaves ran staring headlines. Austria was at the throat of Servia, and war was a matter of hours. All Europe was arming.

I opened another paper. Events had gone forward. Austria had begun the journey of chastisement. From East to West of Europe sounded the clamour of war. I scanned the pages, and threw the paper down. The next I opened, and again the next. No line of hope!

I leaned and read.

Dusk was deepening, and slow grey fogs wended across the flats. “Watch-and-pray” and “Wait-and-see” sat erect upon their haunches, peering up to know why I delayed. The evening had grown still again, birds and sheep alike were silent; but from the Piggs’ cottage smoke climbed in cheerful wreaths. Pigg and his wife were at tea now, old Scottie no doubt with them: they were talking of war and ruin, though half a world lay between.

I picked up the fallen papers and put the axe upon my shoulder. “Here, ‘Watch-and-pray,’ here, ‘Wait-and-see,’ we’re off at last!” I took the path through the ti-tree, though it was boggy still from the rains, and brought the dogs to heel as we passed beside the river through flocks of dozing sheep. Out of the calm skies first stars were coming. We reached the cattle-yards, and pushed a way through the loose barbed wire. The breath of honeysuckle was blown from Scottie’s cottage, but the place was dark and empty. Scottie had not come back.

We left the yards to go along the path which crossed the hillside; then dipped into the gully and climbed the opposite bank. The horses stood under the pepper trees in a lazy, drowsy circle. I glanced into the buggy-shed to see that all was secure. I pulled open the garden gate. It was evening now, full evening, grey and a trifle chill; and among the grasses crickets shrilled and from the waterhole by the lightwood tree rose the voices of amorous frogs.

A score of perfumes met me at the garden gate. The peaches, pears, and apples were a-flower; and the lemon trees and oranges budded. When we came to the house, I reached down the dogs’ meat from the shelf beside the window, and led the way to the kennels, which were among piles below the flooring. The dogs began to bark again, and ran to their places, sitting down to be chained up. I chained them, gave them their meat and a goodnight pat, and went round to the back once more.

The house key came from its hiding-place, and I unlocked the door and went inside. In the kitchen it was nearly dark: in the front room it was darker; but there were matches by the lamp on the table. Then I opened the front door and went on to the verandah. Roses had climbed all above it, all round it, all across it; and on either side the flowering peaches leaned for support. I pushed aside the rose branches and stepped down into the garden. The stars were shining and, across the creek, lights had come out in every farmhouse. The milking was over at the Browns’, for a drowsy stream of cows returned to the paddock. I watched them a moment, and next went to the back of the house again. At the woodheap I picked up an armful of sticks to carry into the front room. Quite soon the fire was started, and it burned brightly. Then forwards and backwards I went into the kitchen, bringing the kettle to put on to the fire, carrying in plates and knives and forks, bread, butter. The table laid, out I went to the woodheap again, and this time chopped big logs. In the chill evening the axe blows sounded sharp and clear. It meant three journeys to the front room with the logs; but those made, I was ready for the night.

I took off boots and leggings, throwing the spurs into the corner. I went into the bedroom and washed, splashing water all over the place. Then I found the frying-pan and lard, and began a dish of eggs and bacon. The kettle boiled for the tea. Soon the bacon was cooked and the eggs were ready; all was there, and the fire shining. I drew in a chair and began to eat. Presently out of a pocket the papers came, one by one to be read through. Long after I had finished eating, by the light of the lamp and the fire I sat reading on.

At last I got up. A kettle of water boiled, and I carried into the kitchen the supper things and washed up. In ten minutes the business was over. I made the bed ready, and put more wood on the fire. By this time it was eight o’clock. For a moment I waited by the mantelpiece, looking into the flames; but they were too hot, and drove me on to the verandah. Once more the perfume of countless blossoms met me in the dark.

There was no moon; it was all starlight, and on the right hand the Southern Cross swung round. At the garden end, the big waterhole glimmered through gaps in a broken fence, and from it came love-songs of a thousand frogs, while in the overhanging branches of the lightwood two cranes kept mournful watch. Each night they stood there at this hour, peering down into the reeds below.

The hill climbed up behind the house and fell away before me. All over it tall, barkless trees stood up—grimly some, some wearily—but each one a spectator of the endless procession of day and night. Across the ground other trees were lying. Bracken had closed round some and brambles had clambered over others. I heard the rippling of the river, and here and there caught the gleaming of waters: there beside the great white gums, there below the willows, there before the bridge; and farther off, upon the plains, showed there and there the farmhouse lights. Round all ran the distant hills. Now from afar a dog barked, now a bull bellowed; and ever, ever shrilled and croaked the crickets and the frogs.

The evening was cold enough for an overcoat, and, putting one on, I sat down on the verandah step. Most nights this was my custom before turning into bed. On and off, for two years, I had come out in the same way—on starry nights, on moonlit nights; on nights of cloud, on nights of rain; on nights of mist, of warmth, of cold. I had lain back on stifling nights when the mosquito alone seemed abroad; and I had felt the breath of the frost come down and had fled beaten to the fireside. For two years I had watched the seasons come and go, and the stars swing round and round. Not a night but I could tell when the moon would sail up behind the hills. I had seen suns set in the West—and I had watched and watched until the East grew rosy.

Two years had I owned and lived upon these lands. I had challenged the wilderness, driving it ever back. I had known days of hope and days of uncertainty; but victory was within sight. Where scrub had waved, now was open country; where logs mouldered, now passed the plough. The fight had cost two years—but I had won.

Over the silent meadowlands I looked, where rape and oats were growing. “Two years have you spent here,” they seemed to say, “and this third year is to be the year of your hopes. We shall repay your labours; wait but a while.”

I looked to the gap in the hills where the moon would climb forth, moving and mounting, presently to sail over lands where stalked sorrow and desolation.

A voice asked, “Will you stay here for your payment? Or will you leave it—to follow the moon?”

“Aye, but why should I follow the moon?” said I. “What hate have I to take me there? No; hard have I toiled; let me remain.”

“Stay with your plough, then,” said the voice. “Muster your cattle and count your sheep. But never more shall you dwell alone. A stranger shall sit in your heart. A stranger shall abide with you to taunt you of your choice.”

The dogs woke me up. Footsteps came slowly along the path behind the house, and old Scottie went by on his way across the hill. Crowbar, shovel, and axe were on his back, and laden thus he passed away into the gloom of trees and suckers.

Through the wet winter we had pulled together fallen logs for burning; and before a giant heap Scottie stopped, and laid down tools. He rested a moment on the pile, to get breath no doubt; but quite soon started a search among the standing trees and bracken. He was looking for kindling. It was so dark—often I could not follow him. Presently he was back again at the heap; and a tender flame crept up, changing gloom into fairyland. An army of shadows were born, and leaped about the magic circle. Old Scottie was plainly now to be seen, even his stumpy beard; and the axe flashed when the flames danced on the blade.

The light grew broader and bolder, and flames licked through the gathered logs, while on all sides moved Scottie, like a priest at the altar—chopping, levering, and digging with axe, crowbar, or shovel. Now he would hurry away with burning sticks to another pile, so that furnaces grew out of half the hillside. With each breeze crossing the river, flames leaped and logs roared; and flights of sparks raced up into the night. The smoke coils were caught to the treetops, and the lofty, leafy boughs, drawn into the maelstrom, were dashed about. From furnace to furnace passed Scottie, tending their needs as a doctor watches his patients.

The night was ageing; all but one farmhouse light had gone out; but I did not think of sleep. I realised the cold and, rising, went inside. The fire still burned. The alarm clock on the mantelpiece said a quarter past ten. I went into the kitchen in search of cake, and next passed through the back door into the open, and took the track cut in the hillside, the track Scottie had taken. While I followed it, the light at the Smithsons’ disappeared. As I came up, Scottie peered at me through the smoke.

“Hallo, Guv’nor,” he shouted. Then he shouted again, waving a hand at the fires, “They’re going well! Have you come to help? It wull take two tae shift some of these!”

I nodded. He picked up the crowbar, I bent down for the shovel; and for the next hour we made the rounds. By that time all the fires had taken good hold and could be left until morning. We were hot, dry, and tired, and with one accord found seats on a log. I crossed hands on the shovel handle, laid my chin on them, and thus fell to watching the fog bands form over the river. I was surprised Scottie was so quiet: he stopped talking so seldom. Now he was content to spit and fill his pipe. This filling was slow of completion and only ended when he had blown and coughed and gurgled through the pipe stem.

“Guv’nor,” he said presently, and I stopped watching the river and looked round, “the papers say there wull be a lot doing at home. We wull be fighting Germany in a day or two. Don’t you say so, Guv’nor?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He smoked on, pressing a finger into the bowl of his pipe. “If it’s a big thing, men wull go frae this country. Don’t you think so?”

“I expect so,” I said.

He cocked his head on one side. “Maybe one or two frae down here wull be going.”

“I shall be going,” said I.

CHAPTER II
ENLISTED

Nearly a month afterwards Ted was driving me to the camp.

The wind had worked up into half a gale, and much of the way clouds of dust swept into our faces. The ponies faced the weather unwillingly, and Ted did not spare the whip. I crouched back in the buggy, with hat hard over my eyes, and for minutes together neither of us said a word, unless it was to curse our luck. Sometimes the gale dropped, the dust lay down, the sun shone again; and then we found ourselves in grassy country, hilly and also flat. Up once more jumped the wind, and the dust sprang after it. It was damnable, nothing less.

At last, at a level crossing, we turned sharply to the right, and the buggy hood afforded some shelter. Between the dust storms, the camp was to be seen, ahead and to the left hand. Tents stretched over many acres. Also I caught a glimpse of paddocks filled with manœuvring infantry and occasional artillery teams. Then we were passing a long row of pines. Opposite them were open paddocks, with Melbourne in the distance.

“It’ll be somewhere about here,” Ted said, moving his head my way, and he pulled the horses into a slow trot.

The road began to fill up. Half-companies of infantry passed us in an opposite direction, made up of uniformed men and men in civilian dress. The whole moved to the shouts of sergeants and lesser fry. A gun team and ammunition waggon rumbled by. The horses were awkward, the harness stiff, the drivers at sea. A mounted N.C.O. called the wrath of Heaven on the whole affair. We steadied to a walk, and the team ambled past.

“This must be the place,” Ted said again, and stopped the ponies. I pushed my head round the buggy hood to find us at an opening in the fence, with a sentry on guard there. The other side of the fence was a paddock filled with tents in rows, and between each row ran horse-lines. Between the tents and the road were drawn up guns and ammunition waggons.

“Yes, this must be the place.”

Ted drew into the footpath while I got out. “I’ll wait somewhere about here,” he said, moving up on the road at a walk and calling back.

The sentry challenged me; but my pass let me in. I asked for the Colonel, and was directed straight ahead. Inside the lines, much was going on. Men ran, trotted, and walked; joked, argued, and shouted. Tents were going up, horses were being picketed; things were topsy-turvy. And of uniform, some men possessed military hats only, others had on military shirts, others military breeches; but the majority wore their civilian clothes. Busy men were to be seen; but just as many loafed round. Outside the quartermaster’s store, equipment of every sort was piled: all painfully new. A score of men lingered round it, and there seemed to be four or five unwilling sorters. In the middle stood the Q.M. with store lists in his hands.

I passed up a line of tents with horses picketed on the left hand, and at the top asked the way again of an individual balancing himself on a tentpeg. He pointed to a large tent not far away, and stared hard after me when I left him.

Outside the big tent was a notice—HEADQUARTERS FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE. An orderly stood in the doorway, lighting a cigarette. Him I asked for the Colonel. “D’you want him?” the orderly said. He pushed up the flap of the tent. I stooped and went in. The tent was furnished with a table and several chairs; at the table three officers sat. Table and chairs were covered with papers and books, and all three men were writing. Round the walls stood packing cases, filled to overflow with strange instruments, odds and ends of harness, and signalling flags. I came to a full stop.

Two of the men went on with their work, but the third—the youngest of them, a lieutenant about twenty—looked up, eyed me, and yawned. When he had finished, he picked up pen again, and remarked casually: “What do you want?” When he spoke, the other men stopped writing and lifted their heads.

The centre man was a big man, and by cap and shoulder strap I knew him as the Colonel. The third man was small and sharp featured, by rank Captain—the Adjutant, I guessed.

“I would like to see Colonel Jackson,” said I.

The big man put down pen. “I am Colonel Jackson.”

I looked him over as he spoke. He was a middle-aged man—nearly fifty, I thought, and rather handsome. His hair was turning grey, his complexion was high, and I warrant he knew how to enjoy life. He looked me straight in the face. A good soldier, I thought: a man worth following. The Captain started writing, and only paused from time to time to run a pen through his close-clipped moustache.

“Yesterday I received notice from the Commandant at Victoria Barracks to report to you,” I began. “I volunteered, and have passed the medical examination.”

“What is your name?”

“Lake.”

“Have you had any military training?”

“I am sorry, none; but I can ride and shoot.” And I added, “I hope this won’t stand in my way. I am very anxious to get in.”

The Colonel drummed his fingers on the table a moment or two, and all the while looked at me. In the end he spoke gravely.

“You know, Lake, a soldier’s life is a hard life, a very hard life—bad food, the ground for a bed, exposure to all weathers, work all hours. The officer is no better off than the man.”

“I have not rushed into it,” I said. “I have thought it over and hope you will take me.” To this he answered nothing. “I have some horses,” I went on, “which would suit a gun team. I shall be glad to give them if they are of any use.”

He misunderstood me. “Oh,” he said, “we have enough now. In any case the Government does not give a high price. What do you want for them?”

“I don’t want to sell,” I said. “I make an offer of them. They are plough horses, and, should I go away, I shall not plough this year. I am glad to offer them.”

“Lake, I don’t think there is any need for that. As long as a man gives his own services, it is all that can be expected. Keep your horses. If you join, when can you come into camp?”

“I can come now; but I should like first to go back to Gippsland. I have a place there.”

“That can be arranged.” He turned to the lieutenant who first had spoken to me. “Sands, take Lake to the doctor and afterwards swear him in.”

I noticed Sands got up rather hurriedly when the Colonel’s eye reached him; but he recovered himself outside the tent. He pushed his hat on to the back of his head, stuffed both hands in his pockets and led the way all over the place. The doctor was not in his tent and seemed to have died or deserted. We wandered about endlessly, without any obvious plan of campaign. Now and then Sands would stop some one and ask when the doctor had last been seen; and always he finished by swearing in a bored kind of way. Then off we moved again.

At last we found ourselves where we had started—outside the big tent. “Stay there,” Sands said suddenly, and disappeared inside. He came out with a large printed paper, a book, a pen, and a bottle of ink. The bottle of ink he balanced on a post, the pen he put between his teeth. Next he began to open out the sheet; and the wind took hold of it, shook it and wrestled with it; and he bungled it, crumpled it, and finished by swearing again. But in the end he won, and we took up opposite positions and made a start on our business. He asked endless questions, which I answered, and we came to the oath. “Take off your hat,” he said. He became solemn in a moment with an ease entirely his own and took off his hat. Next he held out a Bible. I took it and we began the oath. The wind blew, Sands mumbled; and there was difficulty in following what he said. More than once he eyed me sternly, and repeated the sentence. But we came through it safely, the signatures were made, the ceremony was ended. There was still the doctor’s signature to get; but Sands was sick of me. He pushed the paper into my hand, waved in the direction of the doctor’s tent, and departed.

I journeyed anew after the doctor, and this time found him in his tent. He was alone, reading a long letter and smiling over it. He asked what I wanted, told me to strip, and went on reading. He read still when I was ready; but presently put the letter away and started to tap me. He tried my teeth, tried my eyes, said I would do, and, while I dressed, filled in the papers.

I took the papers to the Brigade Office, and gave them to Sands. The Colonel was there, talking to an officer I did not know. “Captain Knight, I am giving Lake to you,” he said. “He will be coming on Sunday or Monday; in the meantime he is going down to Gippsland. Make him out a railway pass, will you?”

The captain swung round. He was a clean, rather well dressed man, with a restless manner. “Yes, sir,” he said, saluting. He told me to follow him, and marched off down a row of tents and across horse-lines, until we came to a tent with a notice board in front. A sergeant-major and a couple of clerks were inside writing: sundry other fellows hung round the door. Knight bounced into the tent with me at his heels.

“This man has been given to us, sergeant-major. He wants to get down to Gippsland to-morrow. Make a pass out, please.” He turned to me. “When can you come, Lake?”

“Sunday or Monday,” I answered.

“Then come here Sunday morning. We have not much time, and you ought to get in all the drills you can. I can’t wait. The sergeant-major will give you your pass.” He went off at full speed.

I was given the railway pass, and left the tent with mixed feelings. There was no drawing back; but—yes—I was glad. I walked fast, guessing Ted would be bored, and in truth he was at the gate, passing time by cracking his whip.

“I’m in!” I called out. Ted grinned and drew the reins together.

Next day I went home for the last time. Ted was with me, and we drove in a hired buggy the eight miles from the station. Scottie, who burnt off near the road, met us at the gate. The sun was shining; the day was very mild.

We had come over long, rutty roads with scarcely a word spoken between us, and when Scottie opened the double gates we turned in with as little remark, following at a walk the track to the house. Here and there stood up thick patches of hoary bracken; and charred logs lay this way and that way to bar the path. While the plough lay idle, Scottie and I had thinned and trimmed the wilderness on the hillside; but much still remained to be done. At it I looked and said: “This is my last day here. When I return, this will be clean and green with grass. I shall be glad; but I shall remember affectionately times which have gone.”

Soon we were at the house. The dogs jumped at their chains and greeted us frantically, so that I stepped down from the buggy and for the last time set them free. We unharnessed the horses, taking them to the yards behind the buggy shed; and while I stooped to pat the dogs, Ted walked a few paces away, spread apart his legs, took off his hat, and scratched slowly the centre of his head. I pushed aside the dogs and got up.

“You have a look over the place,” I called out, “and I’ll fix up things inside. If I finish in time, I’ll come and look for, you; otherwise you’ll find me here.”

He nodded in a dreamy way, and went on scratching his head. When finally he came out of the brown study, it was to wander off at a snail’s pace towards the La Trobe flats. I had waited by the garden gate for him to say something, but he went off without a word and I made for indoors.

I threw open the kitchen door, the sitting-room door, the bedroom door, the front door, and the sunlight tumbled into the house. Hat and coat went on to the table, and that was all the ceremony before business. Out came every drawer and open came every box; and in a heap on the floor fell papers and old letters. One or two bills which turned up I filed; all else travelled to the fireplace, where match and poker were sole mourners at the funeral. It took time, for I was thorough, and in the end it was too late to look for Ted. Instead, I went on to the verandah and sat down on the step, looking towards the river. The sun shone over the paddocks; but the afternoon had grown cooler.

There was little or no wind, so that things had become very still. A few birds whistled to one another in the trees behind the house; but the sheep were camped out of sight on the flats, and the bullocks fed in the scrub far away. Across the river, small figures moved to and fro. The Browns cut chaff by the willows, the Smithsons mended a fence by their cultivation. Over the hilltop, down the road, ran children home from school.

“Thus it was yesterday,” I said, “thus will it be to-morrow, but I shall not look on. I watch this for the last time. My kingdom is passing into other hands. A stranger will sit at the fire at night. A stranger will read my books. A stranger will watch the rabbit-fence, will count the cattle and muster the sheep. A stranger will hear the parrots whistling, the jackass laughing, the magpie jodeling. A stranger will see the floods rise and fall, will feel the heat of summer and winter’s bitter grip. A stranger will mark the changing seasons and count the stars sailing through the skies. Round and round Time’s wheel will go. So be it.”

After half an hour Ted wandered back. I chained the dogs up, kneeling to say a long goodbye to them. Maybe they understood, for they barked and scratched and jumped wildly. We put the horses in the buggy, and in climbed Ted and I climbed after him. He picked up the reins and flicked the whip across their shoulders, moving them forward at a walk. There we were, following for the last time the track to the gate. Behind us the dogs were crying.

Old Scottie waited at the gate to give me a dirty hand.

“Goodbye, Guv’nor,” he said. “Come back again.”

“Goodbye, and good luck, Scottie. Look after things,” I answered.

That done, we were through the gate, rattling down the road. Beyond the rabbit-fence the sheep in the rape gazed up with stupid eyes; a turn, and we were beneath the gums spreading vast arms above the river; another turn, and we bumped over the wooden bridge, where dead wattle blossoms fell upon us. Then I looked back for the last time—and next the trees came between.

CHAPTER III
TRAINING

At the camp gate I said goodbye to Ted, and he promised to look me up in a day or two, or as soon as he could. We made no heart-breaking affair of the ceremony, and before I was inside the gate the ponies moved in an opposite direction. I saw Ted touch them with the whip to get them into their collars, then the buggy hood hid him and I saw him no more. I picked my bag up, pulled out my pass, and walked towards the guard at the entrance.

Rain had fallen on the previous day. No sooner was I inside, where the ground had been trodden by horses and men, than I skated over a rink of mud. But mud was a feature of the camp, as I found out afterwards.

There were no signs of Sunday here; all was as I left it two days before. Hurry and disorder were present; truly there seemed more men, more horses to pull into shape. The same workers passed to and fro; the same loafers chatted amiably in restful corners; the same guards kept weary watch upon their guns.

There was no hurry as far as I was concerned. From an island in the mud I looked round; and when it was time to move forward, I went no farther than the quartermaster’s tent, where the crowd of men and the heaps of stores made progress a matter of tactics. True, my goal was the Brigade Office, and in time I arrived there and stood waiting my turn. It was not long before the clerk beckoned me inside, and for the second time I was before the Colonel. I looked for my acquaintance Sands, who had not put in an appearance. The Colonel spoke a few words; but business soon took his attention, and I stood, baggage in hand, while an orderly went for Captain Knight. Knight was a long time arriving, and finally arrived in a hurry. I found out he commanded the ammunition column. He was quite friendly and talked outside the tent several minutes. He ended by saying, “From now you become Gunner Lake,” and then it seemed he recollected a forgotten affair, for he broke off with, “Come on, I’ll hand you over to the sergeant-major.”

On his heels he turned, and away we went towards the column office, he leading, I following. We passed the cook-house on the way, where a long row of iron pots sat astride the fire. A rickety shed, furnished with a chopping block, basins, and other things, was the only protection from the weather the cooks boasted. A man in a jersey and dungaree trousers peeled potatoes, and a second big fat man chopped up vegetables. That was all there was to see.

The sergeant-major sat in the office, and took charge of me. I waited a long time while he went through business with a clerk; in truth I was bored to death before he pushed the writing things away and got up. “Come on,” he said, and went outside.

In the mud we slipped and slid by men in all dresses and all stages of hurry. The horse-lines were impassable. The stout sergeant-major took matters calmly, trailing me in his wake, with my baggage knocking round my knees. We came in the end to a tent somewhere near the middle of a row and stopped there.

“Corporal Black!” the sergeant-major called out.

A long, nervous-looking man came out of the tent, and stood to attention, staring at us rather stupidly at the same time.

“Corporal,” the sergeant-major said, twisting his moustache ends, “this man is going into your tent. His belongings are with him, and you can fix him up with the other things. Start him to-morrow. His name is—what’s your name?—Lake.”

The corporal introduced himself to me pleasantly enough, and the pair of them fell to talking on other subjects—that is, the sergeant-major talked and the corporal agreed. When the sergeant-major tired and moved away, I was invited into the tent. Black showed me where to sleep, and made me drop my kit there. There were bundles of blankets placed tidily before the tent, and several articles of clothing and equipment hanging from the pole in the centre; but none of the owners were present. The corporal sat on a packing case and I sat down opposite. He looked me all over, twitched his eyelids and began a talk of the camp in general, describing everything as upside down, but telling me I was lucky in my tent, as all the members were good fellows. He did not interest me much, and I passed the time watching events outside. Did I look at him at all, his eyelids started to twitch. Presently he tired of talking, so that a lull fell between us, until he remembered I had not been issued with the regulation blankets and eating utensils. He got up saying we would go to the quartermaster’s store, which was close at hand. Out we went. A crowd was about the place; but we got the quartermaster’s ear, and quite soon I was loaded up with a waterproof sheet, a pair of blankets, and a knife, fork, spoon, and pannikin.

Back at the tent again, the corporal told me I could do what I liked until twelve o’clock, when the horses went to water. So I started a journey of exploration within the artillery lines, looking at horses, guns, waggons, and everything else. Work had slackened off—men washed at the watertaps, cleaned their leggings, or wrote letters. Behind the ammunition column lines were three batteries. The watering troughs were in a far corner, and the whole camp, appropriately enough, overlooked a cemetery. I was not too exact over the tour, because of the mud, and finding the quartermaster’s tent again, I rested on a bagful of harness. Sitting there I saw a sight surely not equalled since Noah organised the march into the ark.

Along the road from the station came men and women and children; not in tens, not in hundreds, but verily in thousands. In cabs they came, in carts, in motors; they came on horses, on bicycles, on their feet. All classes arrived to rub shoulders in the crush. Some walked fast and some walked slowly; some were eager, some lagged behind; some were gay and some depressed. Old and young appeared, mothers, wives, fathers, children, uncles, aunts; in multi-coloured array for an hour they swept by. Baskets, boxes, parcels, handbags came with them, filled, packed, bulging with refreshment for the gallant volunteers. Outside the gate the road grew impassable from vehicles commandeered for the assault; and still foot passengers arrived. It might be an army transport waggon tried to force a passage; but inevitably it jammed in the tide—nor sergeant’s threats, nor sergeant’s prayers availed it.

The infantry lines swallowed most of the raiders; but enough stayed behind to overflow our grounds. I was sorry to see so many elderly people ploughing through the quagmire; and my sorrow went watching the girls in silk stockings high-stepping through the mud.

Twelve o’clock came, and Corporal Black called out for me to give a hand with the horses. Men in the section were away on leave, which made us short-handed. I have said the water troughs were at the other end of the compound, and in that direction we went. The rule was a man to two horses; and from our column and each of the batteries issued an endless line of horses. At the troughs was a long wait, and then one stood in a couple of inches of water while the horses drank. Back to the lines, we tied up, heel-roped, fed, and were dismissed.

Near our tent I ran into Knight and Sands talking together. Knight looked up, and called me over. “Lake,” he said, “the Colonel has made you his galloper, so you will leave the ammunition column and join the Brigade Staff. You are lucky. I would almost as soon have the job as my own. You have more chance of winning a V.C. than any man here.” Sands grinned but said nothing. “You’ll stay in the column to-day,” Knight finished up, “and shift in the morning.”

I thanked him and went on. It was good news, and came as a surprise.

At the tent I found it was lunch time. An iron pot of greasy stew was outside, and Corporal Black ladled it out to men standing, plate in hand. The men belonged to the tent, and I was introduced. They seemed good enough fellows.

The stew failed to interest, but it did not matter, for we were given no time to eat it. An order came along that horses had arrived for us, and we must fall in at once. Everyone started to grumble, but out we had to go. About a hundred men formed up in two ranks, and when there had been sundry conferences of officers and a running about of N.C.O.’s, we marched out of the gates at a smart pace. The crowd still arrived from the station, though not in great numbers; and the road was absolutely blocked with waiting vehicles. It was impossible to keep rank, and the order was given to fall out. The horses were in a yard by the road, drafted into pairs by remount men, and each one of us led a pair back to camp.

The afternoon wore on, and by the time the horses were picketed the trumpeter had blown “Water” and “Feed.” This brought the day’s work to an end. I had tea—bread and jam and tea—and wandered forth on a second journey of discovery. I watched the crowd of soldiers and visitors talking and making love, until closing hour arrived and the latter disappeared.

Finally the camp was empty of strangers. The stars came out, evening aged into night, and the big enclosure was hushed. There was impatient stamping of horses, there were the voices of pickets passing down the lines: nothing more. I found the way back to my tent.

In the ground I hollowed a hip-hole, spread out the waterproof sheet, and over it laid the blankets. The clothes I took off afterwards made the pillow. I lay down and covered myself up. The others drifted in and made their own beds.

Listening to the murmur of voices, watching shadows thrown from the one candle by the tent-pole, I heard blown the “First Post,” the “Last Post,” and “Lights Out.”

The week which followed brought endless bitter winds and uncharitable showers. Not one sunny smile had it for the recruit.

At break of day “Réveillé” sounded through the camp. With the last notes, I threw the blankets off, rubbed my eyes and with an effort got up. The tent was open, showing a leaden sky where late stars hurried away. The horses in the lines stood with drooping heads; and a picket, muffled to the eyes, wandered along at funeral pace.

In the tent no one moved: breathing was even and serene. However, I started to dress; and presently Corporal Black rolled over, sighed and poked a nose out of the blankets. “Was that ‘Réveillé’?” he said huskily. I nodded. He lay quite still, blinking his eyes; but growing more awake, presently he sat up, and from his seat surveyed the slumberers. Then he woke up in a hurry. “Get up there, you fellows,” he began to shout. “‘Réveillé’s’ gone ten minutes!” Right and left he leaned, shaking all he could reach; and slowly, and with many groans and an oath or two, the tent awoke. By now I was dressed, and I left him doing his worst.

A second call sounded almost at once, and ten minutes later the “Fall in” went. From every tent men came tumbling, some without leggings, some drawing on their coats, half of the company with boots unlaced. A few arrived from the watertaps with shining faces; and all headed towards the parade ground beside the quartermaster’s tent. In lines, one behind another, we fell in; and with the last stragglers still doubling up, the roll was called. In five minutes the brigade marched into stables.

The routine was yesterday’s—watering, grooming, and feeding. When we turned out, breakfast was ready. Breakfast meant a small chop, bread and jam. After breakfast we paraded again for stables and exercising. Exercising over, there was watering and feeding to go through. Then along came lunch—stew and bread and jam.

I was sitting outside the tent, persuading myself we had finished a damned good dinner, when I found a little corporal standing close by. He was short, fat, and very young. When I looked up, he came forward and began to speak in a hesitating fashion.

“You are Lake, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” I answered, getting up.

“My name is Tank. I am corporal of the Brigade Staff. You’ve been put on to the Staff, you know, and I’ve come along to tell you to bring any baggage to our tent. We’re the four tents at the end of the row; but if you’ll come along now, I can give you a hand.”

I thanked him and put things together. I told Corporal Black what was happening, and soon was ready to start. The fellows in the tent nodded goodbye and then we left. The new corporal was quite good-natured, insisting on carrying some of the things.

A number of men sat by the Brigade Staff tents, contemplating without interest the remains of the late feast. They looked me over with casual stares; but the corporal said nothing. He led the way into the second tent, which was empty except for blankets in their waterproof covers. “Take the empty place over there,” he said, pointing with his hand. I dropped my blankets and other gear where he suggested, and while I did this he pulled a lot of chocolate from his pocket, handing me a large piece and filling his own mouth. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “I have to go up to Brigade Office now. Don’t go away, as we fall in soon.” He hesitated a moment, and then went through the doorway.

I arranged my kit in a better way, for there was no room to spare, and then followed him out. The other fellows of the Staff still sat and lay round the tents; but I knew none of them, and walked a little way off towards the parade ground.

There had been a few gleams of sun about midday; but it was getting bitterly cold again. Half the men had on their coats, and the horses in the lines were rugged up. I pushed my hands into my pockets and turned my back to the wind. I was not exactly hungry, but the stew could have been more interesting.

“Aye, my friend, behind you the gates are closed. Uncharitable skies and stony beds henceforth shall be your portion. Months shall it be ere you taste of comfort’s draught again. Though your tears be bitter, none but yourself shall mourn, for yours—yours was the choice.”

The trumpeter blew “Fall in,” and I doubled for the parade ground; fast behind me the others hurried up. After roll call Corporal Tank marched the Staff to the back of the Brigade Office tent, and formed us up in two rows. Then he disappeared inside. He had been gone a very little time before the bitter winds tested and found wanting our slender discipline. The men began to shuffle their feet, to twist about, and next to break rank. A pair started a boxing match, others played leap-frog. What remained turned spectators or broke out into cursing the weather and themselves as fools for volunteering. Before long not a man was in his place; and behold, without warning, from the tent stepped forth dramatically my old acquaintance Sands himself. He gave a preliminary stony stare, before bursting into wrath.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? Is this a parade or a damned circus? I don’t know how a lot of bally fools like you managed to join; you must have escaped from the nursery! Fall in at once! Next time all leave is stopped!”

He had by no means finished. He tried indignation and failed; he tried sarcasm and failed; he tried appealing to our feelings and failed utterly. In the end he was incoherent and collapsed.

The corporal had followed him from the tent with a bundle of flags, white and blue. These were handed round.

“Now we’re doing station work this afternoon,” Sands announced with a blow of his nose. “Have you all got pencils and paper?” Nobody had anything. “Oh, how absolutely damnable!” He beat the air. “What do you mean by coming out like this? You are worse than babies! Go and get them. The next man that comes out without a pencil can consider himself under arrest!” From the abashed ranks an individual wandered forth in search of pencils. Sands watched with darkening brow. “Double, man, double!” he screamed at last. The figure broke into a heavy canter and was lost among the tents.

While we waited, Sands and the corporal held a conference. It was not possible to hear what was said; but at the end of it Sands turned about with the order, “Fall out those men who have done no semaphore signalling.” Half a dozen of us stepped forward, I among them. “Take these men, Corporal, start them on the alphabet. They won’t want flags. See that you keep them at it: there is very little time for this sort of thing.” The corporal saluted, Sands saluted. The corporal cried, “’Shun! Right turn, quick march,” and away we went over the mud to a deserted corner. “Halt! Left turn. Stand at ease”: and there we were in line facing him.

The afternoon was full of hurrying clouds—restless, cheerless clouds—and the eager winds which had roamed all day over the open country swooped gladly upon me. I found a handkerchief and blew my nose lustily, cursing at heart the corporal for choosing such a barren spot. He on his own account looked blue and uneasy; but his fat helped him.

“Pay attention,” he said. The squad looked up. In short jerky sentences he explained the principles of signalling, illustrating the position of “Prepare to signal,” and other matters. Presently we stood at “Prepare.” “Now we’ll try the first circle—Ak to G. To prevent mistakes, A is pronounced Ak, B is Beer, D is Don. Now commence. Ak, Beer, C, Don; E, F, G.”

Away went his arm, and away after it went ours. “Again now. Repeat. Repeat again.” Round and round the circle went our arms, with many halts and delays. It was tiring and bitterly cold work; but we were kept at it. All the while I could hear the beating of boughs in the pine trees behind, and could see tents pulling at their guys and rugs flapping on the horses.

Sands had formed up in pairs the remainder of the Staff, one pair opposite another pair, and these pairs waved flags and did sundry other things. For the first half-hour a fair amount of work was got through; but it happened that Sands had an appointment, or grew tired or cold or something, for he disappeared and left the signalling to its fate. A tall fellow called Oxbridge threw down his flags at once. “Damn this,” he said, and fell on to the ground. The others followed him; and though Tank walked across and threatened, nobody cared. So he came back to us again; and set us at our Ak, Beer, C. One by one the other party drew together, and soon a pleasant little conversation went forward, spoilt only by the inclement afternoon.

At last Tank dismissed us for a few minutes’ spell. The fellows wandered off in different directions, while Tank came over to me and attempted a conversation. He struck me as a curious chap, dissatisfied with things, yet unready to make efforts to right them. I began to suspect him as a poor disciplinarian; he on the contrary blamed the muddled condition of affairs to Sands, who, he said, was no good and heart-breaking to work under. I listened but poorly, it was too cold, and, turning on his heels presently, he ordered the signallers to fall in anew, which they did after argument. Round and round went our arms again until the trumpeter blew “Stables.”

All that week wind and storm prevailed, and all the week we stood in the open signalling. At the end of three or four days there was no man who was not sneezing, sniffling, and coughing.

Week by week it was the same thing. It was stables, stables, stables; and signalling, signalling, signalling, with now and then a lesson on the director, plotter, or rangetaker, and now and then a lecture. The lectures were before a black-board in a tent; Sands gave them, and halfway through he would become tangled up beyond vaguest hope of extrication. But that was small matter to him. He would go outside and read up what he had forgotten, and come back and bounce us. We had riding drill, and we practised galloping in and out of action; also we had small manœuvres on our own account, and, things shaping better, the complete brigade manœuvred presently, first alone, afterwards in combination with the infantry.

The camp endured several weeks, and during that time the weather did not change. Very soon every man was sick to death of the whole affair. It was belief in our quick departure that alone sustained us. For constantly it was rumoured we were about to start on our great adventure, and once or twice we went as far as to make preparation. Disappointment was not borne in silence. But most things come at last. One dark and chilly morning found us clattering through Melbourne streets on the road to the wharf.

CHAPTER IV
THE VOYAGE

Our boat, the Blankshire, put out of Albany Harbour one of a fleet of transports fifty or more strong, convoyed by cruisers. We began a weary journey to an unknown destination, fair winds and fair skies companioning us. The fleet steamed in three lines, travelling at the fastest rate of the slowest vessel, and the convoy moved abeam, to starboard and to port.

The Blankshire had steamed through Port Phillip Bay a fortnight before, carrying a sober ship’s company. We had left camp at the eleventh hour, and few friends were on the wharf to call goodbye. To help us, it may be, the band played on the boat deck through early afternoon, until the trumpeter blew “Stables.”

At last land had been exchanged for sea; but it was out of the frying-pan into the fire. We moved into the swelter of the tropics, and routine gripped us. It was stables, stables, stables! It was stables before breakfast, and stables after breakfast; stables in the afternoon, and stable picket at night. Across the jumble of trampled men and nervous horses came for ever Sands’s voice.

“You fellows, keep those horses moving. What are you doing there, Oxbridge? Why aren’t you hand-rubbing, Woods?”

Round and round the steaming decks moved the procession of men and horses, a battered, unsavoury collection, long lost to hope. Through the middle of the day, when the sun was most menacing, we spelled for a couple of hours, lying about the decks to doze and read. After tea we loitered in the same way, and those who could brave the stifling lower decks went below to gamble. On pay nights you would find a gambling school at half the mess tables, with gold and notes passing forward and backward. Many a man left the table lighter in pocket, if heavier at heart. Towards ten o’clock “Lights out” was blown, the hammocks would be slung on their hooks, and we would turn in for the night, packed like sardines. You could not move an elbow. And so another day ended.

But who wants the details of that weary journey? Heat and the odour of manure are what best I remember of it. It seemed never more would we sight land.

One afternoon there came an order we must show no lights after dark, and night falling, the fleet moved forward in gloom. And one fine day the Sydney steamed into the horizon, and at morning stables arrived the news she had met and sunk the Emden. A great cheer went up, one of the few cheers passing our lips for many a day. But we saw nothing of the fight ourselves, and the weeks went by full of a long monotony. But it was ordained we should have a foretaste of the great adventure ahead of us. It happened thus.

A red-hot sun went down into the ocean, and a calm, close night had fallen. The troopdecks, with hundreds of hammocks rocking gently against one another, were stifling. The sounds of hundreds of sleepers came out of the dark, for rays of the sentry’s lantern at the companion-top crept no farther than the stairway bottom. Through the port-holes the stars moved up and down, and through the port-holes came the shifting of the seas.

They had inoculated me a second time that day, and I lay in a hammock between decks, burnt with a slow fever. I turned and turned; but I could not sleep. There was not a breath of air. I saw the old sentry relieved, and the new man take his seat beside the lantern to read and nod. The dark was full of the little noises of sleepers—rustlings, strange breathings, short-lived groans, jumbled snatches of talk. Sometimes these noises died while I dozed, next I would grow wide awake. Heartily I wished the night gone.

I forget what I thought about—nothing, it may be. I remember waking and dozing, dozing and waking, that is all. Finally the night wore on towards morning, and the fever began to wear out of me. It seemed at last I was wooing sleep.

With a great roar of waters, an unbelievable shock, and a grinding of timbers, the Uranus struck us astern, came on, and struck us again amidships. With a roar of waters, she fell back into the dark. An instant of silence came, and hard on it followed the frantic hooting of the siren, and the sentry came falling down the companion, the lantern tumbling atop of him. We were left in the dark.

The shock of collision had set every hammock wildly swinging and had left me wide awake. In one movement my legs were over the side of the hammock, and I had pulled down the lifebelt from the rack above. All over the troop-deck you heard men waking up in a hurry, clinging to the hammocks on either side to steady themselves, pulling themselves into upright positions, and reaching out for lifebelts. There was a sense of great fear in us. For as long as it takes to tell no one spoke, next voices piped out all over the place.

“Collision, boys, collision!” someone called out. And someone else cried, “It’s a dinkum collision this time!” And a score of other voices were exclaiming. It was very dark, so much so that almost nothing could be discovered; but there were the sounds of men reaching about or jumping on to the tables, and the quick patter of many naked feet on the floor. In no time men streamed up the companion, fastening lifebelts as they went or carrying them under their arms.

I had wasted no time in jumping on to the ground; but I paused a minute to pull on my boots and get an overcoat, for I liked little the idea of a voyage in an open boat in pyjamas. I paused no more than a moment, but at the bottom of the companion I found myself on the outside edge of an excited crowd surging in a single direction.

The night was very calm, and as soon as the ship had ceased to quiver she became quite steady. Her engines had stopped; but as yet there was no list or anything of that kind. It was the darkness and the sense of being trapped below that made one hold one’s breath. Men who had slept on deck were trying to get down for their belts, and we in much larger numbers were pushing up. There was a jam in the tide. You heard men calling out, “Keep to the right, keep to the right!” or “Steady on there with your blasted pushing!” Then I was caught in the flood and carried quite slowly up the companion, and vomited forth on to the open deck.

Now either it had rained, or the dews were very heavy, or the crew had been in act of hosing down the deck; but the first thing I found coming out into the open was that the deck ran water. “By Jove, she’s going quickly,” thought I! The place was crowded with men moving fast in all directions; but I turned sharp to the right and got a footing on the second companion, leading to the upper deck. The same crowd pushed up and down here; but I was caught again and emptied out on top as had happened before. I had been behindhand down below, and up here I found many of the men formed up before their boat stations, lifebelts on, and the officer in command calling the roll. I hurried past to our own collision station, and found most of the Staff there, and Sands in charge, quite cool and on the bounce as best became him.

He eyed me coldly as I fell into line. “Lake, you are too slow to catch your shadow! Silence there in the ranks! You fellows ought to know by this time there is to be absolute silence. The next man who speaks will go under arrest.”

It was a beautiful night. The sky was full of stars, there was no wind, and the air was very warm. We had come to a standstill, and the water about us was sleepy and full of shadows, and alive with quick sparkles of phosphorus when you looked down into it. All about were the lights of the other transports, which seemed to have stopped; and I found myself peering into the dark to find if the lifeboats were arriving.

The hurry of the first moments was over now, the men were lined up before their boat stations, and the only movements were of the boats’ crews unlashing the tarpaulin coverings and arranging the tackle and the oars. I was wondering at the strangeness of the calm after all the hubbub, when from near the funnel a rocket went up into the air with a great rush. It hung a long moment high up in the sky, while the lot of us craned necks after it. The calm night, and the quiet which had fallen over the ship, had loosened the grip of fear on most of us, until this sudden signal rushed into the heavens. Now men began to look sideways at one another, and you might see men licking their lips. The only light about here came up from the engine-room, by way of an open hatch, and those standing near-by peered down, for what reason I could not guess. The Morse lights began to wink from neighbouring transports; but other answer to our signal than this I could not find. A second rocket hissed into the air.

I looked for a list to starboard or to port; but none did I make out. The lifeboat in front of us rocked ever so gently in the davits; and this might mean a list or only the heaving of the seas. I could not decide, and I looked again for the lifeboats which the other transports should have sent.

Truly it was eerie work standing silent in the dark, knowing nothing and guessing overmuch. There was no noise beyond the clatter of movement made by the seamen unlacing the tarpaulin of our lifeboat, shifting the oars, and examining the lockers. Half a dozen were at the work and seemed to take the affair calmly enough, all but one who fussed about in an agitated manner until told to go and bury himself. And Sands—the unquenchable Sands—marched solemnly up and down before us, the lifebelt drawn high under his armpits and lending him in the gloom a hunchback appearance.

For an hour and more we stood there.

After what seemed a night of waiting, two men went round the lower deck with a lantern, peering here and there as though making search. In course of time they stopped by a lifeboat on the port side, and one cried out in a great rough voice: “Prepare to lower boat!” I had watched him as he shouted, and now there came a shine in the waters beyond the rail, and I discovered floating calmly, and it seemed most tragically, an overturned boat. It bobbed up and down twice or thrice, then moved into the gloom, and I lost it. The man with the lantern and a number of other fellows grouped round the lifeboat in the davits; but whether they lowered it or not I did not discover. It was impossible to follow their movements where I was.

We stayed on at our stations, whispering and shifting from one leg to another; and nothing happening beyond the turning of the stars, and the listing of the seas, a sense of security returned. Finally a hint of dawn crept into the sky.

Now as we stood, full weary of waiting and impatient of the slow dawn, a shaft of yellow light fell on us from afar, picking us out of the dark, and setting a-shining the seas about us, and behold, H.M.S Hernshaw was drawing alongside. She moved within hailing distance, under her own way it seemed, the glare of her lights falling over her guns and her armoured sides. Her decks were cleared for action. Aft of her were paraded her crew; an officer, megaphone in hand, in command. She moved within hailing distance of us, a creature of brilliant lights and gloomy shadows; a creature at once so beautiful and so forbidding that I forgot my last fears watching her.

The officer put the megaphone to his mouth. “Are you all right?” There came an answer from our bridge, which I lost. But the man-of-war’s reply was plain to hear. “Then what are you waiting for?” Again I lost our answer. Hard on it followed the man-of-war’s command. “Pick up your boat at once and go on!”

Their searchlights had travelled up and down our starboard side; now they shut off, and the Hernshaw moved into the dark. Quite soon she had slipped away; next our engines beat again, and the screws began to turn. We were moving on. There came the order, “Dismiss!” A half light had crept everywhere, and you saw men pour down the companions to the lower decks in pyjamas and shirts, talking and pulling off lifebelts on the way. On the lower deck I ran into Sands, who had come down by another companion. Our eyes met, and he gave me a great understanding grin.

Delays went for nothing, and presently we drew near the coast of Egypt. We held a concert on the boatdeck to celebrate our coming, the stars shining above us, and the blue phosphorus-filled water swirling below. To wind up, Colonel Irons told us he had news to give. Egypt, not England, was our destination. There was work to be done, and we might be fighting in a few days. The jaded company took heart again. Soon we lay off Port Said among a fleet of warboats and other craft; and later we lay against a wharf at Alexandria, and the long voyage was at an end.

CHAPTER V
IN EGYPT

Eaves put his hairy hands upon my shoulder, and dragged me out of sleep. “’Ere, Lake, wake up, you’re on picket with me!” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “My God,” said I. Eaves grinned and moved away. He wore his overcoat, and a helmet of wool over head and neck. The big black moustache hid the rest of his face. “Show a leg this way!” he called back, plunging hands into pockets and hunching his shoulders. Away he went.

I lay nearly atop of Tank, one blanket serving both of us. I got up quietly to leave him undisturbed, and tucked him up at the same time. He was on his side, an arm across his face; and he was full of deep breaths. We had lain down as we had arrived a couple of hours before. I got up fully dressed. The sand had grown cold and had gathered much dew, and I was rheumy and knew a hundred little pains. I threw one arm above my head, and after it the other. I tossed back my head and opened my mouth, letting go something between a yawn and an oath.

It was night yet; but dawn was very near. The sand was hidden under a grey vapour; the sky was cloudless and filled with stars. To the right hand there seemed uneven hills climbing into the sky; and to the left, in the distance, stood the Pyramids. In the centre of this desert space was the little company of men and horses, sleeping exhaustion’s sleep. We had staggered there, and straightway had thrown ourselves upon the sand.

I stepped clear of everybody until I was in the open. I stamped my feet, settled my coat, pulled straight the wool helmet. I was dead tired still. Then I turned the way Eaves had gone, leaving behind me the sleepers. The horses were tethered to a single headline and lacked heelropes. Some lay on their sides without twitch of the ear or quiver of the nostril; others were stretched out, breathing in great sighs. There were those that got up, shifted a pace or two, and dropped down again; and those that wandered until pulled up by the rope or entangled with a neighbour, when they reared or plunged in spiritless manner. Never had I looked on such a weary company.

Hands in pockets, Eaves wandered up and down, grumbling to himself and shouting at the horses. Quickly it was seen the absent heelropes caused work in plenty. We dived together for a brute on his knees, half choked with a tangled headline; and we dived again for another in worse case. Hardly was there time to swear at each other: there was no time for yawning. Of course there were lulls in the fury when we stood a few moments straight-backed to stare at the ground or look one another in the eyes, and curse Egypt and the Kaiser and ourselves as fools for having come this far. And then it was “Blast that ’orse!” and together we sprang for it. The wide flat country shut in by blue starry sky made the night immense, and we went about much of our work in silence. For the small noises of our movements and our words, and the groans of the horses, were caught and swallowed instantly in the stillness. There was so much to do, time went with great speed. The false dawn moved abroad while I thought still it was night.

We were on short picket, and quite soon I was relieved. Light was spreading everywhere, the fog was lifting, and with it passed away the damp. The morning was very sharp, so that I started to wonder how long the sun would delay. As yet there was no sign of it. I waited a few moments, hands deep in pockets, watching the new pickets move disconsolately up and down. Then I walked back to the sleepers. They were as I had left them, on their backs with open mouths, curled up knees to chin, and even covered completely up in coat or blanket. Even now it wanted most of an hour to réveillé, and I thought of bed again. Tank had seized the blanket for himself; but I knelt down and firmly took most of it away. He groaned, but he did not wake up. I lay down beside him and pushed my back against his, which was warm and comforting after the sharp air. I wrapped the blanket well about me, and quite soon I was asleep.

I seemed asleep no time at all; but when I woke the sun had come up into the sky, the desert was bright and alive, and men were waking all round me, yawning, getting up, and stamping, and cursing Egypt for a barren and barbarous land. Tank sat beside me, blinking his eyes, and puffing his cheeks out like a swollen toad. He was dirty and done up, and I knew his liver was out of order again. It meant a bad time for the Staff, had not the Staff taken Tank’s wrath as a joke. I forget if we spoke at the time. I know presently I rose to my feet and walked a little way off from the others. I felt as broken up as I could wish to be, stiff and dirty and not overfull of hope. It was the sharpness of the morning that saved me. I took off the woollen helmet and opened out my coat, and in a few minutes my blood began to move a little. I thought of a wash; but, hands deep in pockets and legs apart, first I saw what was to be seen.

We were a ragged island of men and horses dropped in a sea of sand. Around was a vast stretch of country, hill land and flat land covered deeply with fine sand. Where I stood the floor was printed over with marks of men and beasts; but farther away the sand sparkled virgin and unsoiled, as though for ages no life had passed by. It was a sombre and forbidding land, and yet it attracted me strangely. In front, a mile or so away, the country was relieved by an oasis of palms many hundred acres in extent. A considerable village of mud huts had grown up on the outskirts, and now in and out the gates wandered what looked like flocks of goats and sheep, tended by native children. There seemed a building or two solitary among the palms, and tall robed figures moved among the trees and round about the village. A man led to work a string of three camels, and other men sat astride ambling donkeys, their legs sweeping the ground. And there were curious cattle shambling before a leisurely cowherd. The shrill crying of voices and the barking of dogs came constantly from over there. Farther to the right ran the straight road to Cairo. It was marked for several miles of its length by two lines of trees. We had brought the horses that way last night, or this morning, to tell the truth. The desert seemed to march beyond the farther side; but it was not easy to see past the trees.

Swinging farther still to the right hand, I met the Pyramids. Where I stood two only were visible. They rose up side by side, large and very forbidding. Before them had risen the first tents of the camp. There seemed, also, stacks of stores in building. Troops moved about in the neighbourhood, like ourselves the vanguard of the great camp. Behind me the desert stretched bare of everything to the horizon. So much for the present, thought I, and I went back to the others.

All the men were awake now, and, as we had lain down in our clothes, there was little toilet to perform. All seemed short of temper, for they were blinking at one another and cursing their luck. That merry rogue Wilkes alone of them all greeted me with smiling face. He sat cross-kneed on a waterproof sheet, and called out to know how I did. I stopped by him and looked down. He was an Englishman, a jolly vagabond chap, and a liar of wonderful ability. I had a strange liking for him; he was my best tonic for the blues. I had but to call out: “Wilkes, old man, come and lie to me about your rich uncle,” and across he would come and keep me smiling for an hour.

Now he turned to me his white, well-fed face, which made me think of a shifty parson, and cried out: “What d’you make of it, Lake?”

I shrugged my shoulders, and said nothing.

“The same here,” he answered, laughing.

Oxbridge, who had been growling to himself, chipped in from near-by. “Awful place! Wish I was back in Collins Street. Won’t catch me here again.”

Then Tank came at us on the bounce and shut us up. He jerked out his sentences on the end of his breath. “What are you doing there! Get up at once! Fall in! D’you want to be told a hundred times! Oxbridge, what are you doing there! D’you hear me, Oxbridge!”

“I damned well hear you,” said Oxbridge, rising leisurely to his feet.

The sun rose up, a kindly sun, warm but not too hot; and the earth grew more cheerful. The winds sparkled and the distant palm leaves glittered; but the bite in the air stayed. The horses were little recovered by their rest, and still lay as dead, with bodies turned gratefully towards the sun. The pickets wandered forwards and backwards along the line. We had expected a day’s rest; but we started the weariest day in my memory. There was chaff to be humped over the sand for the horses; there was watering to be done. The shifting sands made walking a labour in itself. Later we were given the camping ground allotted us; it was distant from the old spot, and quantities of baggage must be carried there. The journeys over the sand were endless.

There was baggage which proved too weighty for man-handling, and a party of us were told off to commandeer help. We trudged towards the tented area, and found there a great gathering of rickety lorries, drawn in each case by a thin underbred horse, and driven by an unsavoury native. The vehicles were in much confusion, there was constant backing, grinding, and jarring; and the drivers employed frenzied gestures and wild shouts. Outside this gathering were a score of resting camels, thrusting this way and that snaky heads, or rolling jaws from side to side on the cud. A group of drivers squatted on their hams, pulling to pieces in their fingers round flat cakes, and pushing the fragments into their mouths. Like the horses, the camels were stale and unkempt; and the gorgeously robed drivers would have been the better for a wash.

We stood a short while watching the jumble, perhaps as we were uncertain of the method of possessing these transports. The soldiers quartered down here were English Territorials, belonging to a Manchester Regiment. I was told they had been sent over from Cairo to prepare camp for us. It was to be seen they knew the game better than ourselves, as he who wanted a cart or camel plunged into the tide, chose a beast more promising than the rest, jumped upon the driver, and by threats and promises forced him to thread a way into the open. The confusion increased, the voices of the drivers broke into passionate Arabic; there was a cracking of whips and a grinding of wheels; and finally lorry or camel came into the quiet of the more open ways and moved over the desert.

The quartermaster’s tents were rigged here, and men weighed out meat, flour, and vegetables, and loaded them on the lorries. The crush in the lanes between the tents was great, lorries, camels, and soldiers trying to pass at the same time. Oaths in plenty were to be heard for the listening, but a current of good nature ran under all. It did not take us long to learn our part. We secured our lorries, heedless of groans and protests from the drivers that they had worked all night and could do no more. We crowded on to them, dangling our legs over the back, and turned towards last night’s camping ground. The sand made the going very heavy, and the horses were underbred and starved. We were sorry for them, but we were sorrier for ourselves and stayed where we were. Torrents of Arabic and a heavy whip got us home at last.

As yet the camp had neither boundaries nor guards, and natives overran it. Numbers came to loaf and stare; also there were orange sellers in scores, and vendors of nougat, chocolate, picture postcards, and cigarettes. They grew a nuisance with their importunity. This was our first day, and we accepted them in good humour and bought largely. The news of our wealth spread quickly, and turned the camp into a travelling bazaar, with merchants ready to bargain salvation at a price.

It was coming towards the middle of the morning, the sun was high up, the sharpness in the air gone, yet the heat was in no way oppressive. The winter climate was ideal. I own the prospect of endless sand was very desolate, and the men seemed to think so. To tell the truth, we were dog-tired, and the endless marching across the sands was taking the last of our spirit from us. Matters were little improved now the lorries helped us. With quite a moderate load aboard, the wheels sank into the sand; and pull the weedy beast as he might, and scream the driver as he could, the load waited where it was. So it happened we must push and haul at the wheel-spokes, or put a shoulder behind the waggon; and in this way, with imprecations and many rests, the baggage shifted ground. We wore out the morning on these journeys.

A dozen natives under a white overseer sank holes for our horse-lines. Never have I met a more easy-going company. Three shovelfuls per minute was the average. The digger put his shovel into the ground and leaned a foot on it; and looked long at the sky and longer at us, and next pressed home the shovel. He straightened his back then, said a word to a neighbour, and lifted out the sand. There was something noble in the leisure of those movements. I watched the gang as I lay on the sand eating a makeshift lunch.

The transport of material continued through the afternoon and into the evening; nor did our sorrows end until fresh chaff had been brought over and the horses watered and fed. To be honest, we managed a few spells for ourselves during that time. There was a great deal to see. People passed constantly to and from the village on camels and donkeys; and herds tended cattle, sheep, and goats not far away. There was no false modesty: we stared at them; they stared at us. There were the bright-robed fruit-sellers, money-changers, guides, cigarette merchants, vendors of silks, chocolates, picture postcards with whom to argue. All this took time. There had been no space to rig tents, and we lay down again at night on the open sands. The desert was not a bad bedroom, the sky being cloudless and full of bright stars. But the sun had not long gone down before the night grew very cold and made a mock of blankets and overcoats. I turned once or twice before morning.

CHAPTER VI
THE SOLDIER’S LIFE

The camp grew apace. A great area, reaching nearly to the shadow of the Pyramids, became covered over with tents; and many thousand men and horses arrived down the long road from Cairo. The infantry quartered themselves at the upper end, where the floor of the desert narrowed to a valley climbing into the hills; light horse took the desert’s inner edge; and army service and we artillery formed the triangle’s base, nearest the palm grove. Steamrollers and gangs of native workmen drove roads across the sands, reservoirs were built, wash troughs for the men were put up and watering troughs for the horses. The camp continued to grow and to improve.

Our first week was an evil one. We could not find our true position, so that several times the horse-lines were relaid. Our tents were pitched and repitched. And the sand, meeting us as strangers, was wearying beyond belief. We set to wondering hard whether a soldier’s life would suit us. But the start was the worst: there followed a change for the better.

Réveillé tumbled us out of bed on many a frosty morning. I say “tumbled us out of bed,” but I mean turned us on our pillows, for it was Tank’s jerky voice which would not be denied. About thirty of us slept in a large tent, where the first morning lights came in through the open doorways to lift the gloom and discover the forms of the sleepers. We were packed tight, with arms thrown over one another and mouths open. Some men would be gone altogether under a heap of clothing. Most mornings I sat up with the last notes of the trumpet, for I was slow at dressing. It might be someone else would rise to rub eyes and swear, but not often; the sleepers rolled over, though maybe a fellow blinked and covered himself up again or lit a cigarette. And then Tank’s jerky sentences broke the peace. “Get up! Get up at once! What are you doing there! Didn’t you hear Réveillé? Get up there!” Still slumbered on the tent. The voice started again. “Get up! Get up, I say. Réveillé’s gone! I’ll peg any man who doesn’t get up!” There might now follow a movement among the sleepers, and with many a groan the tent would awake.

It was wise to make an early start dressing. Between “Réveillé” and “Fall in” the interval was not long, and blankets must be rolled for inspection and kits stacked outside by them. As all the fellows waited for the last few minutes and dressed together, there was great scramble and confusion. When the “Fall in” went, men still were running about, dumping down their kits, putting on leggings, and pulling on coats. We fell in in two rows at the end of our lines, and Tank called the roll.

Sands’s habit was to stroll across in the middle, and stand huddled in a greatcoat, for he resisted the cold but indifferently. His face showed very pinched and trembling, and he had much use for a handkerchief. The roll call over, he read brigade orders, and maybe he added a few remarks of his own upon our habits. Then came the first command of the day. “Turn in! Cast off for water!” The rule was a man to two horses, but more often it was a man to three or four. Those who stayed behind cleaned up the lines and filled the nosebags, and a man went down to the camels to bring up the day’s fodder. The journey to the water was tedious and not without risk; but the vast congregation of horses at the other end was a wonderful sight. There were many thousand moving to and fro. Halfway on the road there, we met the sun rising behind the trees on the Cairo highway. It was of immense size and blood red, and the long rays swept across the desert, and set the horses’ backs shining. At once the chill left the sands, though the cold stayed.

Often there was a long wait in the neighbourhood of the troughs, as the water supply was wont to give out. Such times were spent calling to the other fellows, begging cigarettes, or watching the happenings at the village not far away. The place was for ever full of peasants moving about their work. Women went down to the waterhole, bearing on their heads large earthenware pots; children tended the flocks and herds; and the men worked at their cultivation and led away into the palms camels and bullocks. There was always a shrill crying of voices from over there, and a barking of mongrel dogs. In time our turn came; we moved on to the troughs; the horses saw the water and made a plunge for it, and there was a breathless moment while they steadied down. They were given plenty of time to drink. Presently sounded Sands’s voice: “Staff, files left! Walk, march!” and we joined the great procession moving back to the lines.

On the return we heelroped and began the morning grooming. I rode a big bony horse, who had known better days as a steeplechaser. He was so full of angles I named him “The Director”; but he was an honest hack. It was my daily penance to tend his wants and polish his coat, and slender enough results did my labours bring me. All the sands of the desert made a target of him; and many a measure of special feed went down his throat without filling his hide. Yet I forgave him much, for he was a good friend.

The men working on the feed passed down the rear of the lines, planting a bag behind each horse. Sands walked up and down the horses’ heads, watching the grooms from the tail of his eye. Here and there he stopped and made examination. Often he suspected me. Frequently he came up and rubbed his hand through “The Director’s” coat. On unlucky days a shower of sand flew out. “Lake,” he screamed once, “the condition of this horse is worthy of a court-martial. I thought you knew something about horses! I see you never saw a horse before you came here! That’s not the way to use a brush, man! Give it to me!” He seized the brush and rubbed with great vigour until the dust went into his eyes and nose. Then he fled for another victim. Sands maddened most of his men; but he only amused me. There was something likeable deep down in him. I am sure he saw the humour of his doings. Often I caught him smiling as he turned away.

When we were all full weary in the arm, and the professional loafers had disappeared on one errand or another, Sands would bethink him of breakfast. “In rear of your horses!” came the order. “Stand to your nosebags! Pick up your dressing on the right there! Oxbridge, do you hear me!” On these occasions Tank stationed himself at one end of the line and wagged his hand in an agitated way. “Pick up your dressing there; pick up your dressing!” he cried in jerky notes. Then Sands called out again. “Are you ready to feed, Corporal?” “Yes, sir.” “Feed, trumpeter!” And the trumpeter blew “Feed.”

Of all the good comrades who had come on this expedition—of those, I mean, who could drive the devil of tedium from you at least notice—there was none better than the trumpeter. He could tell a wittier story than anyone else; he could tell a story more wittily than anyone else; he could act better, mimic better, dance better, lie better, laugh better than anyone in the tent; he could do anything that helped to hurry time. Night after night he was the centre of a shaking circle. If half his tales were true he had lived a strange life. He was full of energy and full of resource, and carried a stout heart in his body. To a dispirited army he was worth a battery of guns. There were other fellows on the staff. There were public-school men like Hawkins and Jimmy Bull; there was Woods who never looked dirty, and Stokes who never looked clean. There was big Bill Eaves who always was crying out, and yet was a good man. There was Mossback from the bush who had brains in place of education; and Corporal Baker who took life heavily and was a good man at his work, though he would have been the better for a wash. There was Wilkinson, tall, lean, and dark; and Lewis, tall and fair, with the face of a girl. There were others to tell you of some day.

“Cookhouse” was blown soon after the “Turn out.” In these early days we squatted on our kitbags, plates on knees, and chewed up sand with the bread and meat. Later we were given tables and forms, and mess-houses were built us. But at first, as I say, we sat down in the sand to eat, and the food was rough and not plentiful.

A canteen was opened near our lines, where you could buy a few things at a heavy price to help down the bread and sand. We spent a good deal of our money there, so that most breakfast times saw us emptying sardines and salmon on to our plates. And it was “Pass the blasted bread there!” and, “Fer Gawd’s sike, pass the jam!”

The first weeks of our arrival brigade orders forbade the riding of a single horse, and we exercised them about the desert in long files at the cost of our legs. Tramping in the sand was heartbreaking work, and we marched miles a day; but the mornings were exhilarating, and the day never grew too warm. There was no threat of the evil summer to follow. Our journey led us among the sandhills, where we were lost to sight of everything but dismal sweeps of sand. Or we topped a rise and were shown afar off the palm groves on the desert edge, and beyond them the great city of Cairo. To the right hand stood the Pyramids, and past them a vast stretch of desert dotted with solitary palms, and palms in groves, and near the skyline other Pyramids. It was splendid to halt up here and overlook the wide country. The orange sellers, trailing gorgeous rags, followed us, and you might lie a few minutes sucking cool oranges, forgetful of the drudgery of every day. Even Sands fell into thought a little while on these occasions. We returned to the lines to water and feed. In the afternoon we exercised again. This was the manner of our living those first weeks.

When you went by the guard at Mena House, and turned to the left to strike the long road to Cairo, you passed in a moment from sandy ways into the arms of a passionate throng gathered outside the gates. It needed a man of purpose to reach his goal undeterred. Brown, frantic faces closed in; gorgeous robes flowed before your eyes. Guides, donkeymen, camel drivers, money changers, fruit sellers, sweet sellers, motor drivers, beggars, fortune tellers, stamp dealers, postcard vendors, cigarette sellers, curio sellers, silk and cloth merchants—one and all screamed and pulled at you for patronage. Restaurant price lists, advertisements of hot baths or addresses of friendly ladies fluttered in your face. You were pulled to the nearest donkey, you were pushed to the nearest camel; a gharri backed into your path, and a motor hooted beside you. It was “This way, Australia! Australia very good, very nice! Oringies five one piastre! Nessles chocolate two piastres! Donkey, sir! Camel, very good, very nice!” And on your part it was, “Go to blazes, the lot of you!” The tramcar alone kept a dignified silence, for it was oversure of patronage. It had no upper story; and those who were cheated of room inside, climbed atop and dangled their legs over those below. A shouting, singing, swearing company set off for the mysterious pleasures of the waiting city.

At last you found your way to gharri or motor, paid your fare, sank down inside; and with fierce cries and a cracking of the whip or a sounding of the horn, you moved to the outskirts of the throng. A last brown face looked over the side and screamed, last dirty arms were waved in your face, and in a moment interest in you died, and the gathering swooped upon new victims. Then you were leaving the waiting camels, and eating up the miles to the town.

All the way the road was filled with hurrying soldiers—tramsful, gharrisful, carsful of them. They forked their legs over tiny donkeys, they rolled to and fro on camels. There were those also who walked; but in these early and wealthy days they were not many. We passed people on the return journey—army service waggons loaded up, platoons of infantry, peasants back from market, children driving home flocks of sheep and goats. Once I saw a solitary figure praying on a carpet by the wayside. The desert was behind. True, on either side of the way stretched sand; but peasants worked here, and presently the countryside would grow green with crop. Now and again canals cut up the ground, and from them wandered away irrigation schemes of ancient pattern, put in motion by a listless bullock at a waterwheel. Quite suddenly one left behind such relics of past days, and came on the fringe of Cairo.

Had you left camp towards evening it was dark by now, and the tall houses frowned down or stared with their lighted windows. In the streets two continents rubbed shoulders, and faces of all shades and dresses of many fashions came into the light of the lamps as you rattled by. In course of time there appeared a quarter with broad thoroughfares and handsome shops, and tall houses built in French style; and somewhere here the journey ended.

The town was full of soldiers—Australians, New Zealanders, and English Territorials. They owned the place. They swaggered, hurried, or mooched down every street, stared into every shop, and commonly explored the inside. At all corners they were meeting and calling out; every dozen paces they pulled up to examine the wares of native merchants. No article hawked through the streets was too useless to find a purchaser. The fellows were like children in their delight, and the majority were orderly and well behaved.

They invaded the eating houses and the cafés; and patronised with equal goodwill the best hotels and the lowest wine dens. Men sat at beflowered tables who scarce knew the use of a napkin. In their purchases they were no less large minded. If there were customers for charms and glass necklaces, there were those who bargained for Persian carpets.

When the calm stars overhead had turned somewhat farther in their courses, and the lusty diners below thought strange thoughts born of the wine they had passed over-freely, it was then that the darker places of the city beckoned, and did not beckon in vain.

You left this great lighted square, where wealth and propriety sat side by side, you followed the length of an ill-lit arcade, you turned one turning and then another, and, behold, you might have travelled a thousand miles. The streets had shrunk to ill-lit crooked lanes, homes of strange smells, strange cries, and vague flitting forms. The tall, dirty houses leaned over you, leaving no more than a strip of sky filled with stars, and that very far away. When you passed the flaring lights flickering in the windows, painted faces smiled at you and eager hands beckoned. Out of wineshops sounded the notes of cheap pianos, and you heard the noise of dancers’ feet, and it might be watched their shadows tossed across the windows. The doorways were filled with soldiers and women and haggling native merchants; and men lurched out to threaten passers-by, or to be hurried from the scene by comrades. There came the roll of tom-toms, or the high notes of reedy pipes; and maybe in some den you caught a glimpse of two or three cross-legged players, and a brown woman jerking herself through the steps of a dance. At any of these places hands might be laid on your shoulders, and hot, haggard faces might peer invitingly into your own.

All the while the business of every day went forward, so that children played at hide and seek round your legs, men urged laden donkeys through the congregation, and bawled the virtues of their wares. Staling meat and butter and vegetables lay on the slabs of the shops, and vehement women bargained there for to-morrow’s dinner. You were buffeted and jostled from turning to turning, and your senses were excited and sickened by sights and odours. The breath of the multitude was heavy in your face. The cool of night found no way down there.

But it was not in these streets the strangest happenings took place, nor was it during the first hours of dark. There were many lanes to be followed, there was much wine to be spilled ere you had learned all. First you drifted to the Bullring, where much was to be seen and done; then you passed to the Wazir, where fresh secrets might be discovered. And then you——. Dear sir, over the nuts and wine, come, listen to me.

CHAPTER VII
THE PASSING OF WINTER

Winter passed and spring followed, bearing in its arms fierce suns and weary scorching winds. The desert camp remained until we learned to hate the country that once had amused us. By day, and more rarely by night, we manœuvred in the desert, making ready for the task which was so tardy in arriving. The life was hard; but I did not find it barren of pleasure. Many a long gallop had I over the shining sands, when the sun was scarce awake. I have spent mornings perched on some observing station while the batteries came in and out of action, and the heliographs flashed and the flags wagged. The Colonel proved a good master, though impatient and abrupt of speech. He spurred from point to point with half a dozen of the Staff on his heels, or sat in some trench on a hilltop, looking over the country with keen eyes. Also I learned the ways of the adjutant, a quiet man with little to say. On horseback he, too, moved swiftly about his business, covering many miles in a morning’s journeying.

Sands—Sands the marvellous—became a telephone expert, and was to be found anywhere haranguing the cable-cart men, or kneeling on the ground, ear glued to the receiver of a field telephone. His conversations were worth the listening. One he held at midnight in the desert. We had word of an attack by infantry, and Sands hurried to the telephone to call up Eaves at the next station. “Eaves! Hullo there! Eaves, I say! Oh, damn and blast the thing, it won’t work! Message for you! Eaves, are you there? Can’t you hear me, man? Are you deaf? Message for you. Infantry advancing——! I say, are you there, Eaves? Eaves, I say! Oh, blast! Oh, damn! Oh, how beastly! Eaves, answer me at once! Mr. Sands speaking. Eaves, do you want to go under arrest?” Eaves (walking up and down somewhere in the Libyan desert to keep warm): “This game’s no good to a man keepin’ a bloke ’anging round ’ere all night doin’ nothin’. If a relief don’t come soon, I’m goin’ ’ome.”

Truly Sands was a man in a thousand: none like him for cool effrontery; none like him for ignoring rebuffs; none like him for going back on statements without turning a hair. He pulled me up in stables one fine evening.

“Lake, your horse is very poor. Is it getting the extra feed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, what’s it doing now? Why isn’t it eating?”

“I was waiting for the order, ‘Feed,’ sir.”

“Oh, man, you’re a fool. I told you to feed that horse all day long. Feed it at once!”

“I thought the other horses would get restive, sir.”

“Don’t answer me back! Feed it at once!”

Next day he swooped on me as I carried “The Director” his food.

“Lake,” he screamed, “what are you doing there? Are you mad?”

“I’m going to feed my horse, sir, as you told me.”

“Man, you must be mad! You’d have the whole line torn up! I thought you knew something about horses. Put down the bag this minute!”

With the coming of the hot winds the shrunken army of tourists, who had this season braved the seas, departed for more kindly climates; and as our own wealth had long since been squandered, the city showed a more sober countenance. On the contrary, the camp had much improved: now it boasted picture shows, eating houses, hair dressers, bookshops, and tailors. But it failed to parch the seeds of discontent. The army spoiled for war. There came news of the Turkish dash for the Canal, and our Field Artillery was held in readiness. Hope revived for a brief space. But the attack came to nothing, and we continued in our uneventful ways. The suns grew hotter, the winds fell on us more fiercely, the flies multiplied. Men went about their work with bitter hearts.

Between “Turn out” and “Cookhouse” Sands bore down on me as I loitered in the lines. Unsuspicious of his intention, I let him approach.

“Lake,” he said, “the Colonel is wanted at once at Divisional Artillery Headquarters. I want a man to find him now. You will do. He went over to the palm grove with Major Felix. Saddle up immediately. Tell the corporal to keep your tea. I am sorry, but I can’t help it.” Sands was polite on occasion.

With heavy heart I walked away to saddle up “The Director.” It was goodbye to my chances of tea. Any hope of success in the errand was small. A hundred roadways ran through the palms. “The Director” looked mournfully at his lost nosebag and followed me cheerlessly to the end of the lines. There I mounted, and we travelled the gunpark. I picked up no news from the sentry, and turned to the palms; I touched “The Director” with the spurs, and he went away over the sands at a long, easy canter.

It neared the hour of sunset, and the desert sparkled and grew rosy in the lights of the dying sun. I dropped the reins on “The Director’s” neck, and let care slip away. My ill-humour was departing. The desert was cool, wide, empty, and silent; and the good beast beneath me moved with faintest footbeats on the sands. Farther down leaned the sun and the desert grew more rosy. The camp was behind and its last sounds fainting. Now the palm grove was near at hand.

The sun fell over the forest of treetops, polishing them as a jeweller polishes emeralds; but there was not a breath of wind to move a leaf. I passed into the trees near the smaller village. The peasants had left their work, and the herds were gathered home; but a few children played among the trees, and I called out, “Saida!” They ran up screaming. One or two I knew—Hanifa, Fatma, and Habibi, the belle of all. They could tell me nothing of the Colonel, and I scanned vainly for hoofmarks on the sand. Presently I chose a middle road leading into the heart of the palms, where I could see some distance to either side. The chance of success was small; but what better course was there?

Within the grove was cultivated ground, so that the paths which ran in many directions were often of no width at all. All these bright patches of green had grown up since our coming. Soon I lost sight of the desert altogether—unless it was to catch a quick glimpse now and again through endless trees. The place was still, and filled fast with shadows. In time I checked “The Director” to a walk: speed was of no account; luck only could bring success. Never had I known the place so empty: no labourer bent over his cultivation; no driver led home his string of camels; no marketer belaboured his laden donkey. Nor was there a sign of the men I sought.

But the journey was not in vain. I had passed a couple of miles through the trees, when I caught sight of them all of a sudden. They crossed the border of the desert land, moving towards home. They rode side by side, and distance changed them to pigmies. I could only guess at them. I turned at a right angle to cut them off. No path led that way; but I made one of my own; and now and then the vegetable patches suffered. Progress was slow, and they had passed beyond me when I struck the sand. I spurred “The Director” and cantered up behind.

The Major turned first, and next moment the Colonel looked back. I saluted, and he returned the salute.

“You are wanted at once, sir, at Divisional Artillery Headquarters.”

He answered something quickly; something not complimentary to Divisional Artillery. We rode on without hurrying the pace much, the Colonel and Major together, I a few lengths in the rear. At the edge of the camp the Major saluted and crossed to his own lines; and we turned our horses for Artillery Headquarters. We passed some distance in silence at a fast walk. Then said the Colonel:

“I think we’re away at last, Lake.”

“Thank God, sir!” said I.

“Thank God!” said he.