by Lewis Hough
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
AGAINST THE STREAM.
A swift broad river, with the water broken into foaming wavelets byrocks which were everywhere showing their vicious heads above thesurface; a string of nuggars, or half-decked boats, fifteen feet broad,forty-five feet long, flat-bottomed, each with a thick rope attached tothe bows, and a string of men on the bank towing it under a hot sun.
Perhaps you have yourself towed a skiff on the Thames, when the currentwas so strong that the progress made with the oars was unsatisfactory.Well, if you have, you _don't_ know one bit what this was like. In thefirst place, the Thames, even by Monkey Island, is still water comparedto the Nile between Surras and Dal, a sixty-mile stretch. Then yourskiff did not carry six tons of beef, bacon, biscuit, and other stores.It may also be safely asserted that the towing-path you walked on wasnot composed of sharp pointed rocks.
Those were the conditions under which certain picked British soldiers,one of whom was an old friend of ours, lost sight of for a considerabletime, were dragging their nuggar up a series of cataracts. Towingalways looks to me an absurd business, much as if a man were to carry ahorse about, and call it going for a ride.
"Are you growling or singing, Tarrant?" asked Kavanagh of the man behindhim on the string.
"Not singing, you may take your davy," growled the man addressed.
"I fancied not, though there is a certain likeness in your way of doingboth which made me ask. I suppose you are growling then--what about?"
"What about, indeed!" grunted Tarrant. "D'ye suppose I 'listed as asoldier or a barge horse?"
"Don't know; never saw your attestation papers."
"Why, it was as a soldier then. I should have thought twice if I hadknown I was to be put to this sort of work."
"Really! Why, when we were rowing, you did not like that, and said youwould sooner be doing any work on your legs."
"But I didn't mean this; why, I have cut two pairs of boots to piecesagainst these here sharp rocks since we began it."
"Ay," said Kavanagh, "but you had already worn-out some of your garmentsat the other game, so it was only considerate to give the feet achance."
"Well, it's a pity them that likes it should not have the doing of it,"said the judicious Tarrant.
"Well, you know, you could not pull an oar, and you _can_ pull a rope,"said Grady, "so you are a trifle more useful now than you were before;and begorra you had need."
"I could pull a rope if it were over the bough of a tree, and the otherend round your neck," snarled Tarrant.
"Oh, the murdering villain!" cried Grady. "And would ye be afterhanging a poor boy who never harmed ye in all his life?"
"Well, keep a civil tongue in your head."
"Sure, and it's myself that has kissed the Blarney stone, and can dothat same. And if you had such a thing as a bottle of whisky or a poundof tobacco about you, I would make you believe you were a pleasantcompanion, and pretty to look at besides. But what's the use of tellinglies when there's nothing to be got by it?"
"Suppose you were to pull a bit harder and talk a bit less," saidCorporal Adams.
"And I will, corporal dear," replied Grady. "But sure I thought we wasmarching at ease."
It may be well to explain that when troops get the word _March atease_!--which is generally given directly they step off, when they arenot drilling or manoeuvring, but simply on the route--they are allowedto carry their arms as they please, open the ranks, though withoutlosing their places or straggling, smoke their pipes, and chat or singif they like.
At the word of command--_Attention_! They close up, slope their armsproperly, put away their pipes, and tramp on in perfect silence.
But marching at ease was such a singularly inappropriate expression formen who were dragging a heavy nuggar up a cataract under a blazing sunthat there was a general laugh, and even Tarrant relaxed into a grin. Ageneral laugh, I say, not a universal one, for Macintosh, who wasplodding along behind Grady, preserved his gravity.
"I don't say that silence is incumberous," explained Corporal Adams,who, since he had got his stripes, had taken to using rather finelanguage, "but too much talking don't go with hauling."
"Ho, ho, ho!" chuckled Macintosh, and the corporal began to think he hadsaid something funny. But no; Macintosh had trodden on an unusuallysharp flint, and that presented Grady's idea of what marching at easewas in a ridiculous form to his mind. So when the pang was over he wastickled.
"Eh, but Grady's a poor daft creature to call this marching at ease; ho,ho!"
A particularly stiff bit came just now. The rope strained as if itwould snap; the bows of the nuggar were buried in foam, and the menhauling were forced to take the corporal's hint, and keep their breathfor other purposes than conversation.
When they had got over the worst, however, the boat got jammed on arock, and the work of getting her off devolved on the crew on board ofher, unless she were so fast as to require the aid of the others, whofor the present got a much-required rest.
"A set of duffers, those chaps," said the sergeant in charge of theparty, a young fellow named Barton, of good parentage, and Kavanagh'sparticular friend off duty. "A regular Nile reis, with his crew of fournatives, would never have stuck the nuggar _there_."
"I wish we had them Canadian vogajaws, sergeant," said Corporal Adams.
"Ay, they are first-rate," replied the sergeant.
"A good many boats have them, haven't they?"
"Oh, yes! Most I suppose, or we should not get on at all. But we havenot had the luck to get them for our craft. There are only a few ofthese who know how to work a boat up rapids at all, and I fancy they areonly apprentices at it. As for the others, one of them owned to me thathe had never been on any river before the Nile but the Thames at Putney,and his idea of a rapid was the tide rushing under the bridge."
"But sure, sergeant, he can sing `Row, brothers, row,' iligantly, hecan," said Grady.
"Ay, but he can't do it," replied the sergeant. "He ought to be in thewater now. There's Captain Reece overboard and shoving; I must try andget to him. Stand by the rope, men, and haul away like blazes when sheshifts."
What with poling, and shoving, and pulling at the rope, the nuggar wasfloated once more at last, and on they went again, and by-and-by theriver widened, and the current was not so strong, and so long as theykept the rope pretty taut the boat came along without any very greatexertion.
"Have a pipe out of my baccy-box, just to show there's no malice?" saidGrady to Tarrant.
"Thankee, I will," replied Tarrant, "for mine is so wet it won't burn.I went up to my neck in shoving off the first time we stuck, before wetook to towing."
"Eh, but that was a chance for the crocodiles!" cried Macintosh. "I sawye go souse under, Tarrant, and thought one of them had got ye by theleg. Ye might have grumbled a bit then, and folks would have said youhad reason."
"It is all very fine," said Tarrant, "and if you chaps are pleased, youare welcome; but I don't call this riding on a camel. I had as soonhave stopped with my own regiment, amongst sensible and pleasant lads,and taken my chance, as have volunteered to join this corps, if I hadknown I was to march all the same, and lug a beast of a boat after metoo. I expected to have a camel to ride on."
"Thank you for putting me in mind that I'm mounted," said Grady; "I hadalmost forgotten it."
"Make your minds easy," said Sergeant Barton. "You will have plenty ofcamel riding in a day or two, quite as much as you like perhaps."
"And I hope it will be before I have worn-out my third pair of boots,"said Macintosh. "Eh, but this is a grievous waste of shoe-leather."
"I had sooner wear that out than my own skin," said Kavanagh.
"I'm not that sure," replied Macintosh. "The skin grows again, and theshoe-leather doesn't."
The sergeant laughed.
"Well, I think I may promise you that you will have no more of this workafter to-morrow," he said. "You will get your camels at Wady Haifa."Barton had b
een specially instructed in camel drill, and selected forhis proficiency to assist in training the corps to which Kavanaghbelonged.
His story was a very simple one; he was not one of the plucked, who,failing to get their commissions, join the ranks rather than not serveat all, for it was most likely that he would have succeeded in anycompetitive examination, being a clever and industrious youth, who wasdoing well at Oxford when his father lost all his money, having sharesin a bank which suddenly failed, and left him responsible to the extentof every penny he possessed. The undergraduate had been accustomed to ahandsome allowance, and owed bills which he was now unable to pay. Thishe could not help, but being an honourable man he would not incur afarthing more, but took his name off the boards at once, divided hiscaution money, and what was obtained by the sale of his horse, thefurniture of his rooms, and whatever else he possessed, amongst hiscreditors, and enlisted. Having once chosen his profession, he went atit with prodigious zeal, and lost no opportunity of attending any schoolof instruction which was open to him. When he had once acquired hisdrill, he was soon made corporal, then sergeant. He distinguishedhimself at Hythe; he learnt signalling both with flags and flashes. Andwhen useful men were wanted for the formation of Camel Corps, and thebattalions in Egypt searched for them, he was one of the first pitchedupon to learn and then to instruct. For, when people talk of the super-human intelligence of German officers and soldiers, and speak of ours asa set of dunder-headed idiots, you need not quite take all they say forabsolute fact. I think if you took the adjutants, sergeant-majors, andmusketry instructors of the British army, you would find it hard to pickout an equal number of men in any country, even Germany itself, to beatthem for intelligence, common sense, and promptitude.
"There will be a new drill to learn!" growled Tarrant.
"Oh, that won't be much," said Kavanagh. "Lots of old words of commandwould do over again, I should say. For instance, `Shouldare--oop!' onlyit would be the camel's shoulder which has to be mounted."
"Now, that's mighty clever," said Grady. "Will you tell me something,Kavanagh, you that's a real scholar now--can a man be two things at thesame time?"
"Of course he can; he can be an Irishman and a barge horse, you see."
"Ah, then a Mounted Infantry man can be a trooper and a foot soldier allat once. And a camel rider, would you call him a horse soldier, now?"
"No, Pat, I could not afford it. I'm an Irishman as well as yourself,and dull people would think it was a blunder."
"That's a true word," said Grady. "And have you not noticed now, whenfolks laugh at an Irishman, he is mostly quite right if they had theunderstanding? Now you have observed, and heard, what a bad countryEgypt is for the eyes. Sure they give us green goggles, or we shouldget the--what do you call it, Mr Corporal, sir, if you plaze?"
"The hop-fallimy," replied Corporal Adams, proud of being appealed to.
"Thank you; the hop-family, what with the sun, and the sand, and theflies. And if you get the hop-family you are likely to go blind, andthat is a bad thing. Is it not curious that the great river of acountry that is so bad for the eyes should have cataracts itself in it?Now that would sound foolish to many people, but you, who are anIrishman, see the bearings of it, don't you now?"
"But," observed Macintosh, "a cataract in the eye is a skin, orsomething growing over it, and a cataract in the river is a kind ofwaterfall. They are not the same sort of thing at all."
"And is that so? To be sure, now, what a stupid mistake then I made.And did you ever undergo the operation, now, Macintosh?"
"Well, beyond vaccination and the lugging out of a broken tooth, I don'tcall to mind that I have been in the surgeon's hands; and if ye want toknow the truth, I don't care if I never am. Eh, but that tooth now, ittook a tug!"
"I thought you had never had it done," said Grady. "It's a pity, sure.And what do you say makes a cataract in the Nile?"
"Surely you have seen enough of them for yersel'. It's a rapid wherethe water comes down a steep part with great vehemence. But whatoperation are ye talking of? I expect ye mean some sauce or other."
"Sure, no; it's only that which they say a Scotchman must have donebefore a joke can be got into his head. But I don't belave it at all;folks are such liars!" said Grady.
"I would have ye to know," said Macintosh, when the others had stoppedlaughing, "that a Scotchman is not deficient in wut, but he can't see itin mere nonsense."
All this talk was not spoken right off the reel, as it reads, but atintervals, during pauses in the harder part of the work, and rests. Andit was lucky they could keep their spirits up; there is health andvigour in that:
"The merry heart goes all the day; The heavy tires in a mile--a!"
Shakespeare is always right.
But the sergeant was better than his word, and that was their lastafternoon of rowing or towing, for they reached the place where thecamels were collected that evening before sun-down. On the very nextday the new drill commenced, for there was not an hour to be lost.
The last days of 1884 had arrived, and Khartoum still held out. Thechances of reaching that place and rescuing Gordon were always presentto every mind; that was the one goal to which all efforts were tending.But there was no good in for ever talking about it; on the contrary, itwas more healthy to divert the thoughts, if possible, in otherdirections. A fall from a horse is unpleasant, and risky to the bones,but a tumble off a camel is worse, because it is more dangerous to fallten feet than five. The first step was a difficulty--to mount thecreature at all, that is. It looks easy enough, for it lies down foryou. Apparently all you have to do is to throw one leg over and settleyourself in the saddle. But the camel has a habit of springing up likea Jack-in-the-box just as your ankle is on a level with his back, andaway you go flying. Experienced travellers, who have camel drivers andattendants, make one of them stand on the creature's fore legs to keepthem down while they settle themselves; but troopers had no suchluxuries provided for them, and had to look after their animalsthemselves, and it took several trials and severe rolls on the sandbefore some of them managed to mount at all. There the camel lay, quietand tame and lazy, to all appearance as a cat dozing before the fire.But the moment the foot was over his back he resembled the same cat whenshe sees a mouse, and away you went. Taught by experience, you springinto the saddle with a vault. Up goes the camel on the first two jointsof his forelegs with a jerk which sends the small of your back againstthe hinder pommel so violently that you think the spine broken. Beforeyou have time to decide this important question in your mind, the hindlegs go up with an equally spasmodic movement, and you hit the frontpommel hard with your stomach.
Surely now you are settled; not a bit of it. The beast jumps from hisknees to his feet with a third spring, and your back gets another severeblow from the hind pommel. After these three pommellings you aremounted. But when you want to get off, and your camel lies down foryou, you get it all over again; only your stomach gets the hits one andthree, and your back the middle one. Opinions differ as to which is themost pleasant, but after several repetitions of it you feel as if youhad been down in the middle of a scrimmage at football, and both sideshad taken you for the object to be kicked at. The ordinary traveller,when once on his camel, would stop there some hours; and again, when hegot off, would remain off till it was time to renew his journey, and sohe would not get so much of it. But a soldier learning camel drill mustgo on till he is perfect.
After mounting, dismounting, and re-mounting a certain number of times,the troopers learned to anticipate the camel jerks, and avoid the highpommels which rose in front and rear of the saddles, or rather to usethem as aids instead of encumbrances. But it took a good deal ofpractice, and some were longer about falling into it than others. Butthey were not always at drill, though they had so much of it.
Some went in for fishing, and hooks and lines had been provided by theauthorities for that purpose. But the sport was very poor, little beingcaught, and after trying i
t once or twice Kavanagh preferred to situnder the tree or in an arbour and smoke his pipe either alone or with acompanion--Sergeant Barton for choice, but he was not always available.When that was the case the honest Grady would sometimes join him, andthough he would rather have been left to his own thoughts, it was not inhis nature to show a want of cordiality towards a good fellow who madeadvances to him. From the day of his enlistment Reginald Kavanagh hadfrankly accepted the situation, and had been careful above all things toavoid giving himself any airs of superiority.
"This is a mighty pretty spot you have fixed on, any way," said Grady,stretching himself under the grateful shade of a palm-tree, "and remindsme of Oireland entirely!"
"It is rather like Merrion Square," said Kavanagh, gravely; "or thatperhaps combined with the Phoenix Park, with a touch of the Lakes ofKillarney."
"Sure, now, you are making fun of a poor boy! Look at that bird now!Isn't he an illigant bird that? There's a many of them about, and theyare the best looking I have seen at all in Egypt."
"Do they remind you of Ireland, too?" asked Kavanagh.
"Well, now, you are too hard on me."
"Not a bit of it, it is only natural that they should, for they arecalled Paddy birds."
"And is that a fact now?"
"Certainly it is. Sergeant Barton told me, and he has been some time inEgypt, and knows most of the birds and animals," replied Kavanagh.
"Well, now, it is only natural that the loveliest bird in the countryshould be called Paddy. Are not the finest men and the prettiest girlsat all Irishmen? They call us every bad name there is, but they can'tdo without us. Why, the general is an Irishman, and the Goughs andNapiers are Irishmen, and the Duke of Wellington was an Irishman."
"And Grady and Kavanagh, the best men that ever rode on camels--or whowill be when they can sit them--are Irishmen," cried Kavanagh, laughing,and Grady chuckled too.
"But, now, there's a thing I want to ask you, since you are larned aboutanimals. You may not have thought it, for I am no scholar, but when Iwas a gossoon I went to school," said Grady presently, "and they hadpictures of bastes hung about the walls, and the queerest baste of allto my fancy, barring the elephant, was the camel. I remember purty wellwhat they told me from the mouth, though I was bad at the reading andthe sums and that; and the master he said that a camel with one hump wasmeant for carrying things, water and potatoes and other necessities, andthat was why he had only one, to make more room, and have something totie them on by. And he said there was another camel with two humps, andhe was created for riding, and was called a dromedary, and when ye rodehim, ye sat at your ease between the two humps, which made a softsaddle, just like an arm-chair ye straddled on, only without arms. Andye could go fast and easy for a week, with provisions all round ye, andthe dromedary he only wanted to eat and drink once a week. Now, havethe dromedaries died out, do ye think? Or are they more expensive, andis the War Office that mane it won't afford them, but trates Christianslike baggage?"
"They were out of it altogether at your school, Grady," said Kavanagh."A dromedary is only a better bred camel; it is like a hack or hunter,and a cart-horse, you know; the dromedary answering to the former. Butboth are camels, just the same as both the others are horses, and onehump unluckily is all either of them possess."
"But I saw the pictures of them," said Grady, with a puzzled look.
"I wish that the pictures had been painted from real animals, and notfrom the artist's fancy," repeated Kavanagh. "It was a general idea, Iknow--I had it myself--that there were two-humped camels, mightypleasant to ride. But I believe it is all a mistake."
"The one-humped beggar is not easy to ride, any how!" said Grady.
"No, that I vow he isn't!" cried Kavanagh. "Some of the camels trainedto trot, and called hygeens, are a bit easier, I believe. The Arabs saythat they can drink a cup of coffee on their backs without spilling itwhile they are going at speed."
"We have not got any of them in our troop," said Grady. "Well, we willget a bit of a holiday, plaze the pigs, the day after to-morrow, and notbefore I want it, for one. For what with them saddle peaks, and therolls on the sand I have got, I don't know whether my inwards or myoutwards are the sorest. But the show is beginning; and, faith, it'sworth coming all the way to Egypt to see the sun set."
This was one of the things which made Kavanagh like Grady's company; hehad a real innate love of the beauties of Nature, which you would rarelyfind in an Englishman of the same class. Together they watched theglories of the transformation scene shifting before them. Low on thehorizon the deepest crimson changing and blending as it rose intoviolet; higher up the blue of the sapphire and the green of the emerald;and when these colours were the most intense, the two rose, and turnedback to camp slowly and reluctantly, still gazing in silence. For nowthe after-glow succeeded; first the sky was a most brilliant orange,such a tint as would cause the painter who could at all approach it tobe accused of the most absurd exaggeration by those who had not seen thereal colour, while those who had would esteem it far too faint. Thischanged to an equally brilliant rose colour; and then, in a few seconds,suddenly, as if "Lights out" had been sounded in the zenith, darkness!
"It is like going to church," said Grady.
"Yes," replied Kavanagh; "that makes one feel God great and man little,doesn't it?"
"Aye!"
They were barely a quarter of an hour from camp, and the fires guidedthem; for hot as it was in the daytime the nights were chilly, and abonfire in the open acceptable. They found their mates gathered roundthe largest in great excitement.
"Here, you chaps," was the cry which assailed them when they made theirappearance, "can either of you make a plum-pudding?"
"Of course," replied Kavanagh. "There's nothing easier if you only havethe materials."
"Well, the materials have just come; how do you work them up?"
"Why, make them into a pudding and boil it, of course."
"Any idiot knows that; but how do you make them into a pudding? If wespoil one, you know, we shan't have any opportunity of trying a secondtime, so none of your experiments."
"That's serious!"
"I should think it was!"
"Well, you take the flour and put it in a basin, and moisten it withwater; and you put in your plums and raisins and citron, and beat uphalf a dozen eggs and put them in too, and three glasses of brandy, andanything else that's good you have got, and you knead it all up for agood bit, and put it in a cloth, and tie it up tight with a piece ofstring, and boil it as long as you can; all to-night and to-morrow andto-morrow night, and so right up to dinnertime."
"It sounds pretty right," said the first speaker, doubtfully; "but howdo you know? Did you ever make one?"
"Why, I cannot say that exactly, but I have seen many made, and helpedto stir them."
"Lately?"
"Not so very, when I was a boy."
"It would be a sinful waste to put sperrits into a pudding," observedMacintosh. "It would all boil away, and no one be a bit the better."
"No fear! Good liquor's too scarce for that," cried another.
"Brandy is a great improvement, when you have it, for all that,"maintained Kavanagh.
But though this part of his recipe sounded to all like the dissolving ofCleopatra's pearls in her drink for wilful waste, the other items of itconfirmed the previous opinion of the chief cook of the troop, and theprecious ingredients were entrusted to his care. When they were wellmixed, an unforeseen difficulty arose about a bag to boil it in; butthat was met by the sacrifice of a haversack, and at last it wasconsigned to the gipsy kettle which was to bring it to perfection. Ifit were literally true that a watched pot never boils, this would havehad a poor chance, for when off drill or duty next day every man ran tohave a look at it; but the proverb happily fell through, and it bubbledaway famously. Christmas-day dawned, and would have been hot in Englandfor July.
It is a curious experience the first Christmas spent away from home in awa
rm climate, such a contrast to all early associations. There weredecorations of palm-branches, and instead of holly cactus, whichrepresented it well for prickliness. And there was church parade; andafterwards came dinner of tinned roast beef, fish which some of thepersevering had caught in the Nile, and an ostrich _egg_, which afriendly native had brought in, and which proved fresh. And thepudding!
It was an anxious moment when the string was cut, and the remains of theancient haversack were opened, and every one was relieved when theobject of interest did _not_ fall to crumbs as some feared, but remainedfirm and intact till cut. Was it good? Well, the proof of the puddingis in the eating, and there was not a crumb or a plum left when theparty rose. Then a delightful afternoon of idleness and complete rest,which took the ache out of many a poor fellow's bones, and talk offriends in England, and reminiscences of home. And some lucky ones gotletters which succeeded in reaching them the right day, and got awayalone to read them; while others kept the link by writing. Rathermelancholy, but pleasant all the same, for the element of hope kept allsweet. And at night a huge bonfire was lit; it was cold of nights, andofficers and men gathered round it for a sing-song. And there was aplatform of barrels and planks on which various performances, fiddling,a hornpipe, recitations, nigger melodies, took place, the highest incommand enjoying themselves as heartily as the humblest. And there wasa tot of rum, not enough to hurt the weakest head indeed, but still ataste, for every one to drink to absent friends, and a rousing chorus ortwo, and sound sleep closing a day of thorough enjoyment. For to_taste_ a holiday you must have a long spell of real hard work.
By this time the men were more at home with their queer steeds, andmounting and dismounting was no longer a painful and even perilousperformance. The camels also had become accustomed to the drill, andlearned to know what was expected of them. All animals work better andpick up ideas quicker in company. Sometimes, indeed, one would dropsuddenly on his knees without rhyme or reason that any one could guessat, and send his rider flying over his head if he were not looking outsharply; but such instances of eccentric conduct were rare, and grewstill less frequent as the bipeds and quadrupeds got to know one anotherbetter.
A move was now made to Korti, higher up the Nile, a good deal nearer thefourth cataract than the third in fact. But this journey was made oncamel back instead of by boat. Now, travelling by boat is notunpleasant when the boat takes you, but when you have to take the boatit is quite a different matter, and riding, even on a camel, is farpreferable. And those long days on camel back, near the Nile all theway, and consequently with no stint of water, were about the mostpleasant experiences Kavanagh and his companions had.
"Well, Tarrant, I hope you are happy now," said a trooper one day, asthe column was on the march.
"Happy! With tinned meat and no beer, and more flies in the open in themiddle of winter than you get over a stable at home in August! I know Iwish I was back in Windsor barracks."
"Never mind, old boy; if you were there you would wish you were here."
"And a jolly idiot I should be."
"Don't fret about that same," interposed Grady, who was riding near."It's your misfortune, not your fault. Faith, we wud all be clever ifwe could; but sure, I thought ye would be aisy in your mind now that youhad got your camel."
