The men were all without their helmets. The soft yet metallic light showed each the faces of his companions; showed them clear and yet strange, softening lines to which they were used, intensifying hollows and aspects never before noticed.
They were set, these faces, into a look of rather bewildered gravity. Smiles there were none; nor even… yet… the grins of desperation.
Hale spoke first, rolling from his side to his belly the better to look up at the Sergeant. He said:
“You says, Sawgint, as ’ow you want suggestions… But — me ’f there’s anythin’ to suggest. You’ve tole us… ’Ere we are… Ruddy well stuck! Well, wiv all joo respeck, we knew that afore…” He looked at Abelson and Morelli as if for confirmation. They nodded. “So what you’ve jus’ tole us… that goes… An’ ’ere’s one as is ready for that draw now.” He put his head down on his crossed arms.
“I agree,” Morelli said. “Yours is the only way, Sarge… We gotta try somep’n… So let’s get at it.”
There was silence then. The Sergeant broke it. “Abelson?” he asked.
The Jew sat with his knees drawn up under his chin. “I s’pose it’s right…” he said at last. “But I think the two of us that draws that job might ’s well blow their — brains out as a start…”
“Hardly that,” the Sergeant said. “It’s a chance… p’r’aps a long one. But it is a chance…”
“H’m! …” Abelson grunted doubtfully. “But the way I see it… look here… suppose ye’re right about where we were an’ the distance to the river… I say: suppose ye’re right… and suppose whoever goes does get through… well, when they’re there, what? … We ain’t a — pack of brass hats… Why the bleeding hell should there be anyone there… English, I mean? … we don’t know… They might be Johnny they found, see? Mightn’t they… Or Arab choots… Or they mightn’t be no one, not at all; and then what? Eh? …”
“It’s all guess-work, Abelson.” The Sergeant spoke curtly. “It’s got to be. It’s doin’ something based on probabilities. And that’s all we’ve got to go on. D’you want us to stay here and rot… or get shot like a lot of piards? What else can we do? I’ve told you all I know and what I suggest. I needn’t ’ve done that… but I have, ’cos we’re in this, all of us, and we’ve got to get out. I asked for suggestions… and I’d be willing to consider ’em… but I didn’t ask for moans… And I’m not goin’ to have ’em… Now: have you got anything to suggest?”
Abelson glowered down at his knees. He said, hesitantly and almost in a mutter: “What about these soors been pooping off at us? Why not have a slap at ’em… Said yerself couldn’t be many of ’em…”
“Right,” said the Sergeant quickly. “Nothing we’d like better… How’ll we start?”
Abelson was silent.
“Come on then. Tell us… How’ll we start?”
“That’s for you to say,” Abelson mumbled.
“Is it? Well, I don’t know how.” The Sergeant had raised his voice a little now. It was clear and hard: it seemed to be making jagged little holes in the heavy moon-drenched air. “D’you think I’ve not thought o’ that? D’you think so? With Bell there… and Pearson and Brown there! You say there’s only a few of… whatever they are… You’re right. There can’t be many or they’d come up and attack us and mop us up… and p’r’aps that’d be a good job…
“No… there aren’t many… Maybe only two… even one… But where are they? … Say those that took the goras ’ve gone, which is probable… But they’ve left some… or someone… And now you’re talkin’, where is he or they? They’ve been within rifle shot… but are they still? … D’you want the job of runnin’ out to catch ’em… when you don’t know where they are… over land with as much cover as a skatin’ rink… Yes, I know you’re goin’ to say they’re in cover. So they must be; but where’s ours while we’re lookin’ for ’em? … They’re in some little nullah we can’t see… over there…” He swung out his arm to the westward. “Y’know what the desert’s like. You think it’s all flat when you look… but oh, no, it isn’t! … But there’s one thing more: ’f we go lookin’ for ’em, that’s what they want… How many of us ’d get there? … And now you’re going to say… so I’ll say it for you… how about the two that go on this chance? Won’t they get spotted and done in? I say they may… that we can’t tell… but they won’t by our pals that ’ve been payin’ us attention. They’re over there.” He pointed again. “Whoever goes from here’s got to go that way; the other way… Our pals haven’t changed their hole, else the guard… we’ve had one on all the time… ’d ’ve been bound to see ’em… When the two go, the others ’ll line that western side and watch…
“No, Abelson,” he said, speaking more slowly now. “You’ve suggested nothing. The draw holds… We’ll do it to-morrow and that night… p’r’aps the next… who gets it’ll go.”
“An’ that,” said Hale, his head turning a little on his arms, “is that! So can it, Israel! ’F yer must spout, do it in yer tit-fer… Wot abaht a bit o’ moosic, Sawgint? … We’re all layin’ rahnd like a lot o’ lumps o’ Gawd-’elp-us tied up ugly… We do look ’appy! … ’appy as four old tarts at a meetin’ o’ virgins.” He began to croon softly:
“I wanter go ’ome,
Right er-way hover ther sea.
I don’ wanter go up ther line no more,
W’ere wizz-bangs an’ sumpers arahnd me do roar.
I wanter go ’ome
W’ere Johnny Turk can’t get at me
Oh my! I don’ wanter die-ee—
I-I-I wanter go ’o-ome…
Come on, you sons o’ lidy dawgs! Chorust, please! All tergevver now…”
For the first lines only the Sergeant joined his voice to the nasal twang of the Cockney; then, on “whizz-bangs” Morelli came in. For the final mournful couplet with its wailing cadence, Abelson surprisingly lifted his voice.
The lingering “h-o-o-me” had barely died away before the Sergeant, his pleasant, deep baritone seeming a mere whisper which was yet musical and plain to hear, began to sing:—
“Some kiss, some bliss!
Some beauti-ful girl!
It was a dream of de-light…”
They joined him at once. The stickily yearning notes of that sticky waltz went lilting through the trees and died away with faint, faint echoes.
There is no sentimentalist to equal in saccharinity the fighting Jew. Abelson scrambled to his feet. His hoarse, harsh voice broke into “Annie Laurie.” He stood in the moonlight and threw back his black, cropped head and the soft light played tricks with his fierce, sensual, heavy-jowled face with its leering mouth and satyr’s nose.
The song was sung with all its stanzas; from the braes of Maxwelltoun to “for the sake o’ Annie Laurie, I would lay me doon an’ dee.”
There was silence after that. But not for long. Abelson sat, but Hale stood. He said: “Very nicet. Ve-ry nicet! Hi will now give seelections from my reepertoyer:
“’Old yer rah, ’old yer rah! …
You ain’t ’eard a word abaht ’arf wot’s occurred…
’Old yer rah… wot d’yer sye?
We’re all clergyman’s daughters wot lives dahn our wye.”
They joined with him in the twenty odd stanzas, to which this was the chorus, going faithfully through the whole ironic melodrama. They came to an end of it and sat smiling.
Morelli, with a sudden bounce, got to his feet. There was still the shadow of his Jonahdom upon his broad, snub-nosed face, but behind and over it was now growing a smile. He tripped the Cockney neatly and rolled him upon his back. “Make way f’r your betters, London,” he said. “Now, take the songs, and the time, from y’r uncle. And sit well back.”
He began: “She was Poor but She was Honest, Victim of a Rich Man’s Whim…” And as he sang he danced. They took his time. They sang with him, they marked that time with soft clappings. They saw a Morelli they had not known: they watched Morel, of Morel and Moree, Specialty
Dancers. He danced that song. He was the Poor and Honest Lady in all her phases, through all her scandalous adventures. He was the Rich Man; the Army Capting; Her Aged Parients. All the time he danced; his acting was in his feet, his little, square chunk of a body, which seemed now writhingly feminine, now bloatedly masculine, now mincing, now haughty… and all, every gesture, every movement, every step, pregnant with the subtle genius of the caricaturist.
He danced; they sang for him, laughter at times blurring words and tune. His interpretation of that verse which runs:
“See ’im in the ’ouse o’ Commons
Making laws to put down Crime…
While the Victim of his Parshun
Walks home thru’ the Mud and Slime…”
so worked upon Hale that he ceased to be part of the orchestra and lay upon his back and clucked.
The Sergeant, singing, and clapping at the beats, smiled round upon them. He sang:
“In a Cottage in the Country
Where her Aged Parents live,
They drink the Champagne what she sends ’em
But they never can Forgive.”
Morelli came abruptly to a halt. This was the end of the song. He sat down.
They clapped, they begged for more. “Go on, Morry!” Abelson cried, beaming. “Caw! Caw!” said Hale. “Caw! Caw!”
The Sergeant felt something tugging at his sleeve. A low, shaking, urgent voice whispered in his ear. “Sergeant! Sergeant!” He jumped to his feet and saw in the deep shadow behind the trunk against which he had been leaning the dim figure of Sanders.
“What’s up?” His tone was sharp, his voice low. Hale and Abelson and Morelli scrambled up and went to the tree against which leaned their rifles. They moved with the jerky swiftness of men whose nerves are on edge.
“Come on, man!” The Sergeant put a hand on the shadow’s thin arm and shook it. Sanders came into the light of the clearing. “Come on, man!” said the Sergeant again.
“The… that singing…” The man’s voice was so low that the words barely carried.
‘What is it? Bell?” The Sergeant had dropped his curtness: his tone, now, was casual. Abelson drew near, after him Hale and Morelli. All fingered their rifles. Their smiles had gone. Back in their faces were the lines of strain and anger and bewilderment.
Sanders shook his head. “No, Sergeant,” he said. “He is sleeping. Peacefully… but… but I heard the singing… and I came out… and I heard… the songs themselves.” His voice was rising; rising with every word. Even the soft silver light did not quench the flaming of his pale eyes. His shoulders lost, suddenly, their droop and were held square and high. His voice mounted. He cried:
“Vile dancing! bawdy songs! A man dying there: two others dead, there! All of us near to death. Lechers… all of you! … But it is not too late… I say, with all the passion of belief…” His voice shook and giant beads of sweat stood upon his face. “I say that it is not too late… God has mercy… God is mercy infinite… Pray! Pray for the souls of these two men who died in their vileness… Pray…”
The Sergeant’s voice cut across the impassioned cry. “Sanders!” It had in it the rasping ring of the parade ground.
The man shivered, as one would shiver who was waked from sleep by a plunge into ice-cold water. The fire died out of the eyes, the rigidity from his body. He put a hand to his head as if in bewilderment. He took that hand down to look, amazed, at the glistening sweat upon its palm.
The Sergeant touched him on the shoulder. He said: “Get back to the hut. At once. Your post is with Corporal Bell. You should never have left it. Go back.”
The man turned, slowly, like a sleep-walker… Abelson jumped forward. His dark face was twisted with darker rage. “You sod!” he said. “You bloody — —! You half-baked Saviour! God — me, but I’d like to crucify you, you —! Upside bloody down…” His voice was choked and thick, the hands which held the rifle shook so that the magazine rattled with a tinny sound.
The Sergeant caught him by the shoulder and pulled him round. “Be quiet!” he said. He pushed him away, “Another word from you…”
They watched while Sanders, like a man in liquor, shambled away and was lost in the shadow.
“Well!” came Hale’s voice. “Strike me a flarin’ ruby! … ’E’s bugs… abserlootely moost!”
Abelson, the rage still black in his face, turned away and walked to the far side of the clearing, to where his folded blankets lay. They saw him spread them and lie, his head buried in his arms.
The Sergeant said: “He’s right. Kip’s the order.”
“Nice endin’ to our swarry,” said Hale.
Morelli looked down, with twisted mouth, at the rifle in his hands. “Put the gust up me,” he said. “Sod ’im! Thought something’d happened!” He walked off in search of his blankets. His head hung. His Jonahdom was with him again.
Hale watched him ruefully. He yawned and hitched his rifle to his shoulder by its sling. “’Night, Sergeant,” he said…
The garrison slept.
X
The Sergeant stood once more upon the end of the hut’s roof. He held to his eyes the field-glasses taken from the dead subaltern, and with them, his view temporarily obstructed every here and there by palm trunks, swept the desert to the westward of the oasis.
It was half an hour past five, and the sun, on its upward course, was now darting diagonal stabs of fire over the palms behind him: he could feel the hot rays… hot and promising a heat to which this was nothing… striking his back even through the thick felt of the spine pad which began at his neck, buttoned to his shirt under the flap of the linen shade pendant from his helmet, and at its other end was looped to his belt.
The glasses had a crack across each of the lower lenses. He found it difficult to decide whether they were better than the naked eye. With neither glass nor eye, however, could he see aught but sand and sand and yet more sand. He sought vainly for some sign which should tell of a nullah, but found none…
Round the spring were the men, all save the sick Corporal who now, as for the last six hours, slept peacefully, not waking even when they had re-dressed his wound. There was no guard, the Sergeant having waived its necessity while he should remain on high; the Corporal, too, had been left while Sanders should bathe himself and eat.
The rank and file were thus together in one place for the first time since they had reached this doubtful haven. MacKay, seated, was carrying out the Sergeant’s orders concerning food, cutting up into equal portions one tin of beef, taken from the pack-saddle in the hut. On an empty haversack beside him were piled seven of the large, hard biscuits which go, with bully beef, to make an iron ration. To his right, in a group, were Abelson and Hale and Sanders, who, bent over canvas water buckets, were washing themselves. The Cockney and the Jew were stripped to the waist; they used a new cake of yellow soap found in the haversack of the dead Pearson. Sanders washed in his shirt: he had no soap, but laboured with hands and water. Apart from this group and facing MacKay, were Cook and Morelli, shaving; Cook with grunts as the blunt “issue” razor ploughed through the stiff bristles which sprouted from his cheeks and massive chin; Morelli with many oaths as the wafer edge of his worn “safety” scraped from his face a mixture of hair and skin. Between them, on an inverted mess-tin, lay a very small piece of pink soap and a small and battered shaving brush.
A peaceful scene, idyllic almost. The troops at ease. Some of the boys of the Gallant —th Behind the Lines. The sun, though mounting, was not yet beating down into the clearing; there was, almost, a feeling of freshness in the air. MacKay, scrupulous over his division, whistled mournfully down at the beef. Hale, between splutters, hummed snatches of the songs they had been singing the night before. He began the dirge-like tune of the Poor but Honest Lady, and laughed his shrill cackle at the memory of Morelli’s dancing. Morelli, the anguish of shaving past, wiped the soap from his face and gave advice to Cook. “Don’t go so bald-headed at it, you sailor! Dror and dror and dror:
that’s the answer.”
“Ar!” said Cook, painfully scraping…
Only Abelson and Sanders were quiet; the one with sullen anger still in his dark face; the other with that habitual closelipped silence which seemed louder than speech.
The Sergeant, turning his eyes a moment from the desert, looked down and across at the clearing. He saw the group strangely foreshortened: they reminded him, so that he smiled, of a troupe of marionettes he once had seen; they had, watched at this angle and in the startlingly clear and brilliant light, those same hard, uncouth outlines; that slight disproportion which makes so charmingly for the grotesque.
He stayed a moment, watching. Then, as he was about to turn his eyes again to that waste of sand, there came a sudden and violent disturbance of that wooden, delightfully unnatural grouping.
The Sergeant bit his lip and cursed beneath his breath… He had seen Sanders, his bathing over, jerk himself rigidly upright, slip, stagger a second, and kick over the bucket in which he had been washing. A jet of water flew high, to soak the right leg of Abelson’s drill breeches. The main body of water sped along the ground… to the Sergeant it had looked like a dark broad gigantic insect… It drenched the boot upon Abelson’s right foot.
The Jew had straightened with a feline quickness, the lithe, deep muscles upon his white back flowing in now deepening, now disappearing ripples. He had looked down at his leg and then up at Sanders in one darting glance… He had taken a pace forward… His right arm had flashed…
Now Sanders lay in the water his own bucket had held. He lay limp and huddled. Over him stood Abelson, his forearms, first at the end of each, moving slightly, tentatively, delicately; like graceful, well-oiled pistons… The other men had stiffened as they stood or sat. Grotesquely, rather; still keeping in the Sergeant’s eyes their marionetishness. Their heads had all turned at the dull yet crisp “flock” of the fist meeting the jaw. Their movements were arrested and held in that moment and so for yet other moments, so that it seemed as if they were pictures in a cinematograph film which has been suddenly stopped and has thus become a mere magic lantern show…
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