Marching Sands

by Harold Lamb

  Inwardly, Gray consigned the spirit of Mirai Khan’s ancestor to another region. Approaching the tether of the leading mule, he motioned to the Kirghiz to set out. They obeyed reluctantly.

  “Are you men or children?” he asked. “You will have no pay until we sight the ruins of Sungan.”

  He wondered, as he trudged forward, whether this speech had been a mistake. The Kirghiz were clearly sulky. Mirai Khan was more silent than usual. Gray noticed that whenever they topped a rise he scanned the plain intently. The behavior of his guides at this point mystified him. The Kirghiz were naturally far from being cowards. Certainly they had neither fear nor respect for the Chinese of Ansichow. Being Mohammedans, they were indifferent to the Buddhist priests.

  Yet the glimpse of wild camel tracks had set these men—hunters by birth—into a half panic.

  Gray gave it up. He was walking moodily by the leading mule, pondering his failure—for he could no longer conceal from himself the fact that he must reach Sungan a good week after the Hastings—when he saw Mirai Khan pause on the top of a dune. The hunter’s figure stiffened alertly, like a trained dog at gaze.

  Gray scrambled up the slope to the man’s side. At first he saw only the brown waste of the dunes. Then he located what Mirai Khan had seen. He raised and focused his glasses.

  Some distance ahead a man was moving toward them. It was a white man, on foot and walking very slowly. Gray recognized Sir Lionel Hastings.

  Followed by the Kirghiz, he approached the Englishman. Sir Lionel did not look up until they were a few paces away. Then he halted, swaying from the weariness of one who has been walking for a long time.

  He was without coat, rifle, or sun helmet. His lean face was lined with fatigue. The hand that fumbled for his eyeglasses trembled. His boots and puttees were dust stained.

  “Is that you, Captain Gray?” he asked uncertainly.

  “Yes, Sir Lionel. What’s up? Where’s the caravan?” Gray had been about to ask for Mary, but checked himself. “You’ll want a drink. Here—”

  The Englishman shook his head. Gray observed that his bald forehead was reddened with the sun; that his usually well-kept yellow hair was turned a drab with the dust.

  “I had water, thanks. Back there, by the tamarisk tree. The caravan camped there for the night, two—or three days ago. I don’t remember which.” He wheeled slowly in his tracks. “Come.”

  A moment’s walk took them to the few bushes and the tamarisk. There a well had been dug. Sir Lionel refused to mount one of the mules, although he was plainly far gone with exhaustion. At the time Gray was too preoccupied to notice it, but the Kirghiz—as he recalled later—were talking together earnestly, looking frequently in their direction.

  The Englishman moved, as he spoke, automatically. He walked by dint of will power. When Gray, knowing the strength of the sun, placed his own hat on the man’s head, Sir Lionel thanked him mechanically.

  It was this quiet of the man that disturbed Gray profoundly. There was something aimless and despairing in his dull movements. Gray, seeing how ill he was, refrained from asking further questions until they were seated in the small patch of shadow. The Kirghiz retired to a neighboring knoll with their rifles.

  “It was near here we discovered camel tracks—wild camel tracks.”

  The words startled Gray, coming on top of the dispute with Mirai Khan that morning.

  “Did you lose the caravan?” he exclaimed. “Good Lord, man! Where is Mary?”

  “I’ve lost the caravan,” said Sir Lionel. “And Mary as well.”

  Sudden dread tugged at Gray’s heart.

  “Where?”

  “At Sungan.”

  Sir Lionel looked up at the American, and Gray saw the pain mirrored in his inflamed eyes.

  “Was she with Ram Singh?”

  “Ram Singh is dead.”

  “The others?”

  “Killed. I do not think that Mary was killed.”

  Gray drew a deep breath and was silent. From the knoll, the hunters watched intently.

  “I will tell you what happened.” Sir Lionel drew his hand across his eyes. “The sun—I’m rather badly done up. No food for two days. No—” as Gray started to rise. “I’m not hungry.”

  He lay back on the sand with closed eyes. His face was strained with the effort he made to speak. Yet what he said was uttered clearly, with military brevity.

  “The night after we sighted the camel tracks we were attacked in force. I think that was four nights ago. There was a crescent moon. Of course, I had stationed sentries. They gave the alarm. There was a brisk action.”

  “Who attacked you?”

  “Ram Singh said they might have been a party of wandering Kirghiz. We did not see them clearly in the bad light. Peculiar thing. They seemed to be afoot. When they beat a retreat, after exchanging shots, we looked over the ground. No footprints. Only camel tracks. And they carried off their wounded.”

  Gray wondered briefly if Sir Lionel’s mind had been affected by the sun. But the Englishman spoke rationally. Moreover, Mirai Khan had been alarmed when they first sighted the imprints in the earth.

  “Our guides—Dungans, you know—said attackers were guards of Sungan. We did not see them again. Late the next afternoon a kara buran passed our way. We pitched tents when the wind became bad, inside the circle of our beasts. When the storm cleared off, I made out through my glasses the towers of Sungan.”

  Sir Lionel looked up with a faint flash of triumph.

  “I was right. Sungan is a ruined city, buried in the sand. Only the towers are visible from a distance. We were about a half mile from the nearest ruins.”

  He sighed, knitting his brows. He spoke calmly. Gray was familiar with the state of exhaustion which breeds lassitude, when long exposure to danger, or the rush of sudden events, dulls the nerves

  “It was twilight when Mary and I started to walk to the towers, with two servants. I was eager to set foot in the ruins. And I did actually reach the first piles of debris. You won’t forget that, will you, old man? I was the first white man in Sungan.’’

  Gray nodded. He felt again the zeal that had drawn Sir Lionel blindly to the heart of the Gobi. And had perhaps sacrificed Mary to the pride of the scientist. But he could not accuse the wearied man before him of a past mistake.

  “Go on,” he said grimly.

  “It was late twilight. I forgot to add that our Dungans deserted after the first skirmish. Frightened, I expect. Well, Mary and I almost ran to the ruins. She was as happy as I at our success—what we thought was our success. So far, we had seen no human beings in the ruins. There were any number of tracks, however, and vegetation that pointed to the presence of wells.”

  “Then Mary and I discovered the Wusun.” Sir Lionel laughed suddenly, harshly. He gained control of himself at once. “They came—these inhabitants of Sungan—from behind the stone heaps and out of what seemed to be holes in the ground. As I said, it was late evening, and I could not see their faces well. Still, I saw—”

  He checked himself, and fell silent, as if pondering. Gray guessed that he thought better of what he was going to say.

  “They were unarmed, Captain Gray, but in considerable force. They ran forward with a lumbering gait, like animals. They were dressed in filthy strips of sheepskin, which gave out a foul smell. I had my revolver. Still, I hesitated to shoot down these unarmed beggars. They did not answer my hail that was given in Persian, then in Turki.

  “Seeing that they were plainly hostile, I began to shoot. They came on doggedly, apparently without fear of hurt. And my two men ran. One was a brave boy, Captain Gray—a syce who had been with me for several years. Yet he threw away his rifle and ran. I saw two of the men of Sungan pull him down.”

  Gray shivered involuntarily, thinking of the girl that Sir Lionel had brought to this place.

  “I do not understand why it happened,” the Englishman observed plaintively. “We had given these men no cause to attack us. I believe they were not the sam
e fellows who rushed us the night before. For one thing, these had no arms. There were women among them. They gave me the impression of dogs, hunting in a pack. They must have been waiting for us in cover.”

  “What happened to the caravan?”

  “Rushed. The Sungan people got to it before Mary and I could gain the camp. Our boys were surprised. Only a few shots were fired. The camels took fright and ran through the tents. I saw Ram Singh and another try to get out to me with spare rifles. The Sikh, who had the rank of Rifleman, shot very accurately. But the Sunganis came between us, and I saw him go down fighting under a pack of men. Mary and I turned aside and tried to escape into the sand dunes.”

  Sir Lionel raised himself unsteadily on an elbow.

  “Do not think, Captain Gray, that I abandoned Mary of my own will. It was dark by then. We could hear the men hunting us through the dunes. A party of them descended on me from a slope. My revolver was emptied by then. I knocked one or two of them down and called out for Mary. She did not answer. They had taken her away. If they had killed her, I would have come on her body. But she was gone.”

  “Did you hear her call to you?” Gray asked from between set lips.

  “No. She is a plucky girl. In my search for her, I passed out of sight of the men who were tracking me. I could not remain there, for they were tracing out my footprints. They have an uncanny knack at that, Captain Gray. As I said, they reminded me of dogs.”

  He looked at his companion, despair mirrored in his tired eyes.

  “I had two alternatives after that—to stay near Sungan, unarmed, or to return, in the hope of meeting you. I knew you would be likely to follow our tracks as far as you could. Possibly you would sight this brush. I made my way back here. A little while ago I sighted the dust of your caravan.”

  Gray was silent, breaking little twigs from the bush under which they sat and throwing them from him as he thought. Sir Lionel’s story was worse than he had expected. Mary Hastings was in the Sungan ruins. She might even now be dead. He put the thought from him by an effort of will. The full force of his feeling for the girl flooded in on him. From the night when her servants had seized him in the aul, she had been in his thoughts. It was this feeling—the binding love that sometimes falls to the lot of a man of solitary habits, whose character does not permit him to show it—that had led him to warn her against going into the Gobi. And it was this that had urged him after her with all possible haste.

  Now the Hastings’ caravan had been wiped out and Mary was in the hands of the men of Sungan.

  “We’ll start at once,” he said quietly. “That is, if you feel up to it.”

  The Englishman roused with an effort and tried to smile.

  “I’m pretty well done up, I’m afraid, Captain Gray. But put me on a mule, you know. I’ll manage well enough.” Gray knew that he was lying, and warmed to the pluck of the man. “I must not delay you.”

  “We should be at the ruins in thirty-six hours.”

  “Right! Where’s the mule—” he broke off as Mirai Khan appeared beside them.

  “Excellency!” The Kirghiz’s eyes were wide with excitement. “I have seen men with rifles approaching on two sides.”

  “Bring your mules into the brush, Captain Gray,” said Sir Lionel quickly. “And place your men behind the boxes of stores. You will pardon my giving orders? These are undoubtedly the same fellows who exchanged shots with us a little further on. If you can spare a rifle—”

  The American handed him the piece slung to his shoulder, with the bandolier of cartridges. The Kirghiz hunters were already leading the mules to the brush.

  CHAPTER XV

  A Last Camp

  Gray had no means of knowing who the newcomers were, but experience had taught him the value of an armed front when dealing with an unknown element. And Sir Lionel’s story had excited his gravest fears.

  Under the American’s brisk directions, the Mohammedans unloaded the animals and tied them near the well. The stores they carried to the outer bushes. Mirai Khan primed his breechloader resignedly.

  “Said I not the wild camel tracks were a warning?” he muttered in his beard. “Likewise it is written that the grave of a white man shall be dug here in the Gobi. What is written, you may not escape. You could have turned back, but you would not.”

  “Take one man,” ordered Gray sharply, “and watch the eastern side of the brush.”

  “A good idea,” approved the Englishman, who had persuaded one of the hunters to place the roll of the tent in front of him. He laid the rifle across the bundle of canvas coolly. “We must beat off these chaps before we can go ahead.” He nodded at Gray, calmly.

  Gray left one of the hunters with Sir Lionel, well knowing the value of the presence of a white man among the Kirghiz. He himself took the further side of the triangle to the north. The knoll was on a ridge that ran roughly due east and west. The nearest sand ridges were some two hundred yards away. Behind them he could see an occasional rifle barrel or sheepskin cap.

  By this arrangement, at least three rifles could be brought to bear in any quarter where a rush might be started; likewise, they could watch all menaced points. But their adversaries seemed little inclined to try tactics of that sort. They remained concealed behind the dunes, keeping up a scattering fire badly aimed into the knot of men in the brush.

  This did small damage. The Kirghiz, once the matter was put to an issue, proved excellent marksmen, and gave back as good as they received. Gray, watching from his post under a bush, fancied that two or three of Mirai Khan’s shots took effect. He himself did not shoot. An automatic is designed for rapid fire at close range, not for delicate sniping.

  But Sir Lionel was at home with a rifle. Glancing back under the tamarisk, Gray saw him adjust his eyeglass calmly, lay his sights on a target, and press the trigger, then peer over his shelter to see if his effort had been successful. The Englishman evidently had seen action before—many times, Gray guessed, judging the man.

  “A reconnoissance in force, I should call it, old man,” the Englishman called back at him. “I think we are safe here. But the delay is dangerous.”

  He paused to try a snap shot at the dune opposite. Gray scanned the ground in front of him, frowning. He knew that Sir Lionel was as impatient as he to start for Sungan. There was no help for it, unless the attacking party could be driven off.

  Gray had been pondering the matter. Their adversaries appeared to be a small party, and they had suffered at least three or four casualties in the first hour. Gray’s force was still intact.

  As nearly as he could make out, the men behind the dunes were Chinese—border Chinese, and ill armed. Why they attacked him, he did not know. Mirai Khan had taken it for granted.

  “Any one who enters this part of the Gobi seems to be marked for execution,” he thought grimly. “If that’s the case, two can play at it. And we’ve got to start before nightfall.”

  Cautiously he wormed his way back into the bushes, to the side held by Mirai Khan. To this individual he confided what was in his mind. The Kirghiz objected flatly at first. But when Gray assured him that, unless they did as he planned, night would catch them on the knoll, and they would be unable to fight off a rush, he yielded.

  “If God wills,” he muttered, “we may do it. And I do not think I shall die here.”

  Blessing the fatalism of his guide for once, Gray summoned one of the hunters. He removed a spare clip of cartridges from his belt and took it in his left hand. This done, he nodded to the two Kirghiz, straightened and ran out along the ridge, on the side away from Sir Lionel.

  The maneuver took their enemies by surprise. One or two shots were fired at the three as they raced along the dune and gained the summit behind which the Chinese had taken shelter. Gray saw four or five men rise hastily and start to flee.

  He worked the trigger of his automatic four times, keeping count carefully. Accurate shooting is more a matter of coolness than of skill. Two of the Chinese fell to earth; another staggered
and ran, limping. The survivors picked up the two wounded and disappeared among the dunes.

  “Hai,” grunted Mirai Khan in delight, “there speaks the little gun of many tongues. Truly, never have I seen—”

  “Follow these men,” commanded Gray sternly. “See that they continue to flee.” Motioning to the other Kirghiz, he trotted back across the ridge to the further side. Here he was met with a scattering fire that kicked up some dust, but caused no damage.

  The Chinese on this side of the white men’s stronghold had learned the fate of their fellows and did not await the coming of the “gun of many tongues.”

  Gray saw a half dozen figures melting into the dunes, and emptied the automatic at them, firing at a venture. He thought at least one of his shots had taken effect. Pressing forward, he and the Kirghiz—who had gained enormous confidence from the display of the automatic—drove their assailants for some distance. When the Chinese had passed out of sight, Gray hurried back to the knoll.

  There he found Sir Lionel seated with his back against the roll of canvas with the excited Kirghiz.

  “The coast seems to be clear,” observed Gray. “We can set out—”

  The Englishman coughed, and tried to smile. “I stay here, I’m afraid,” he objected. “It’s my rotten luck, Captain Gray. One of the beggars potted me in that last volley. A chance shot.”

  He motioned to his chest, where he had opened the shirt. The cloth was torn by the bullet. “Touched the lung, you know”—again he coughed, and spat blood—“badly.”

  Gray made a hasty examination of the wound. It was bleeding little outwardly; but internal bleeding had set in.

  “We’ll have to get you back to Ansichow,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “A mule litter and one of the Kirghiz will do the trick.”

  “No, it won’t, old man.” Sir Lionel shook his head. “I’d never get there. One day’s travel would do me up. I’ll stick—here.”

  Mirai Khan, who had rejoined the party, drew his companions aside and talked with them earnestly. Gray did what he could to make the Englishman comfortable. Assisted by the hunters, who worked reluctantly, he had the tent pitched, and laid the wounded man on a blanket, where he was protected by the canvas from the sun.