by E. C. Tubb
Then had come bitter days of searing heat and frigid nights of shivering cold. Thirst had come, and hunger, but of those two thirst was by far the worse. The horse had collapsed and he had been forced to shoot it to put it out of its misery. How long he had wandered with only the stars and the sun to guide him he never knew, but somehow, it may have been the sight of a familiar face or the familiar uniform, he knew that he was yet in time and that now he was safe. So he slumbered the deep, uneasy sleep of exhaustion while the sergeant, supporting the limp figure on his saddle, walked his horse back to his waiting men.
“Toureg?” Lambert stepped forward as the sergeant drew near. “Riff? Bedouin?”
“Neither.” John didn’t want too many of his men to learn that their officer had been found in Arab disguise. He called the corporal to one side. “It is Lieutenant de Corville. He warned me that the Touregs were about to attack Onassis and asked me to warn the Colonel.” He glanced at his men. “We must return to the fort at once. Inform the men that this is a friendly Arab we have found, the less who know of the lieutenant’s services among the Arabs the better. You understand?”
“Perfectly.” Lambert hesitated. “The lieutenant, is he well?”
“Exhaustion. I have given him water and will later give him more. He will recover soon, we caught him just in time, but another few hours would have seen the birds at his eyes and not all the water in the oceans could have saved him.”
“It is well,” said the corporal seriously. “The lieutenant is a good man.” He looked at the sergeant. “Your orders?”
“We return to the Fort. Open order with arms at the ready. Post flankers and vanguard. The lieutenant will ride my horse and I will remain at his side. Quickly now! Action!”
It was smoothly done. Men detached themselves from the column to form the vanguard, marching several hundred metres in advance of the main body. Others took up similar positions to either side, watching the desert around for danger and keeping their fingers on the triggers of their Lebels. Lambert watched the men take position then, his voice carrying to the furthest man, snapped the order to march. In a compact unit, ready for any form of trouble, the legionnaires with the unconscious officer slumped across the horse and their sergeant at his side, marched back towards the fort that was their home.
The attack came at dawn on the second day. It started with the spiteful crack of a rifle and a man, one of the legionnaires on guard, screamed as he fell, clutching at his stomach, and vomiting blood. A second rifle fired, a third and then the brightening day was rendered hideous with the yelling cry which all the legionnaires had learned to hate and fear.
“Allah il Allah! Mohammed il Akbar!”
They came like a rush of white-cowled ghosts, seeming to rise from the very sand, their rifles spitting fire and lead at the little band of legionnaires. Corville had woken with the sound of the first shot. He had almost recovered, from his journey and, though still thin and gaunt from privation, was well on the road to full recovery. Now he forced himself from automatically taking command and snapped quick instructions at the sergeant.
“Take command, Smith. I do not want the men, and more especially the Arabs, to know that I am a legionnaire in disguise. Once they learn that then my usefulness will be over.” He smiled at the scarred face of the sergeant. “Anyway, you are as capable of taking over as I. Do so.”
“Yes, my lieutenant.” Smith turned and shouted quick instructions but, even as he gave his commands, the men had anticipated them with the cunning of years of experience in desert warfare.
The first charge of the yelling Touregs was met with a hail of lead and white-burnoosed figures tumbled to the sand and there stained it with their ebbing blood. Again the savage raiders flung themselves against the beleagured men and again the long-barrelled Lebels sent them to an early Paradise. But it seemed that mere death alone could not stop the savage charge for, to men who firmly believed that Paradise waited for any man who died while attacking the infidel, death was nothing, an open door from the harshness of desert life to the promised land flowing with milk and honey, with pleasant gardens and eternal youth and fresh young Houris to serve their every whim.
And so they charged again and again, yelling their faith that there was no God but Allah and that Mohammed was his Prophet. And each time they charged there were fewer Lebels to answer their screaming defiance.
Men died in the sand as they blasted at the burnooscd shapes. Men of many nations and many languages, united beneath the common banner of the Legion and proud to die among the mea with which they had lived. Lambert, his eyes glinting over the barrel of his rifle, swore a medley of oaths as he pumped lead towards the attacking Touregs.
“Les Cochon! Chein! Sacré Bleu! Pigs! Swine! Devils! Take that you son of a fatherless mother! And that, you spawn of hell. And that from Francios who you killed at Hollendoft, and for Pierre who you staked out for the ants to eat two years ago.” With each imprecation be fired at the Touregs and more than one of his skilfully aimed bullets met their targets.
But the death was not all on one side.
Legionnaires died too, not so fast, nor as many, for they had burrowed into the sand so that only the slender barrels of their rifles and the tops of their kepis showed above the desert. But they died from sheer weight of numbers for a man can only shoot at one target at a time and when he is faced with five targets, all shooting, all advancing, all screaming to Allah and eager to die, then it takes more than a Lebel to save him.
And so they died, their blue and scarlet daubed with the bright hue of blood, as they lay gasping in the sand. Some died cleanly, shot between the eyes or in the heart. Others were not so lucky.
Crouching beside the motionless body of the horse, one of the first to die, Corville worked the bolt of a rifle with practiced ease and sent lead whining across the sand towards the advancing figures before him. Again he fired, again and again until the barrel grew too hot to touch and until his groping fingers found empty leather where bullets should have been. Smith crawled towards him, his scarred face a mask of blood and sweat, a flesh wound in his upper arm staining his once-trim uniform with blood.
“Things are bad, my lieutenant. It seems that these devils will not withdraw until we are all dead.”
“It is I they are after,” said Corville grimly and fired at a burnoosed shape ahead. “You remember the message?”
“Yes, sir. But what can messages avail now?” Smith ducked as lead thudded into the saddle an inch from his head. “We are very near the fort, I cannot understand why they should attack us when so near.” Again he ducked and Corville grunted as something like a hot iron traced a path across his forehead. He swore as he wiped blood from his eyes, then smiled at the anxious face of the sergeant. “A flesh wound, it is nothing.”
He stiffened as he caught a vestige of sound above the firing, and stared hopefully at the sergeant.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what, sir?”
“That. Listen.” The firing lulled and faded away almost as if each man was straining his ears to the vagrant sound.
It came again, louder, clearer, thin and distant but unmistakable.
The notes of a bugle.
Hearing it the legionnaires raised a cheer then, as if afraid of losing their vengeance, began firing with a total disregard for their expenditure of ammunition, blasting at the Touregs as if their Lebels were machine guns, spraying the desert with leaden death and sending more than one shapeless figure to his desired Paradise.
For a moment the Touregs hesitated, seemed about to charge again, then, as the bugle sounded nearer and louder, broke and ran across the undulating dunes towards their hidden horses.
Within seconds, it seemed, the desert was devoid of all life but for the fleeing shapes of horsemen, the huddled bodies of the dead, and the grim-faced, wounded, cursing remnant of the column of legionnaires.
“Eh bien,” said Lambert joining Corville and the sergeant. “It was warm while it
lasted, no?”
“Too warm,” said Smith drily. “Me, I can do without such heat.”
“I managed to avenge Francios, my brother,” said Lambert. “I swore that five should die for what they did to him at Hollendoft. Pierre also, I have yet to kill three for him, but there will be another time, yes?”
“Yes.” The sergeant stared towards the horizon to where the ranked kepis of a marching column had appeared in view. “Just in time,” he muttered in English. “Another few minutes and....” He broke off, staring at the young officer, then shrugged and holstered his pistol.
Corville managed to stay out of the way while greetings were being exchanged and the legionnaire dead stripped of weapons and buried. The wounded were supported on crude stretchers for transportation back to the fort and the Arab dead were left where they had fallen. Perhaps their comrades would return for them or perhaps they would lie until sun and weather had turned them into bleached bones.
Either way it didn’t matter and. as the reformed column swung into the march back to the fort and safety, Corville felt a sudden elation. He had accomplished his mission and, with his warning, Colonel Marignay should be able to beat off the attack and, perhaps, crush the threatened rebellion.
He hoped.
CHAPTER FOUR
ONASSIS
FORT Onassis was a squat, sombre edifice of sun-baked brick. It dominated a rocky pass, one of the main caravan routes to the East, and from its high, slender watchtower floated the tricolour of France. From its walls guards stared down at the surrounding terrain and, in the watchtower itself, the solitary figure of a watcher could be seen as he scanned the desert with field-glasses. A bugle sounded as the column came into sight and, by the time they had reached the thick walls, the guard had been alerted and the doors opened to admit the weary men.
Hostile eyes stared at Corville, still in his Toureg costume, and angry oaths reached his ears as men inspected the wounds of their comrades or looked for friends now lying in shallow graves. Hate ran high in Fort Onassis, hate of the savage raiders forever threatening their peace, hate of the sun, the restricted life, the insects, the heat, the monotony of the desert and, to this hate, was coupled a hatred of their commanding officer.
Corville saw the reason for that hatred as he crossed the, pounded dirt of the compound towards his own quarters. A man, a legionnaire, stood in the burning sun, naked to the waist, his hands lashed to a cross-beam above his head, his back scarred with angry weals. He had been whipped and, as he stared at the red cross-cuts marring the brown skin, Corville felt a rush of anger towards the commander of the garrison. Men were punished in the Legion, and discipline was hard, but men were not, nor should they be, whipped. There were cells, dark and noisome holes, damp and alive with vermin. There were forced marches with full pack and little water. There were labour details and, in the most severe cases, the penal settlement in which men worked at road building as they served their sentences. But whipping was not allowed by the military code. To whip a man both degraded him and his companions and, listening to the idle mutters and watching the eyes of the legionnaires, Corville resolved to do something about it.
In his room, the door shut and locked, alone with the sergeant from whom he had no secrets, the young officer stripped, washed from a basin of tepid water, dressed in his uniform and, once again a legionnaire in every sense of the word, straightened with a new dignity.
“Why was that man whipped?”
Sergeant Smith shrugged and felt the bandage around the flesh wound in his arm. Like Corville, he had first received medical attention; the young officer had a strip of adhesive bandage over the wound on his forehead.
“I asked a question,” snapped Corville. “Who ordered the whipping?”
“Colonel Marignay, sir.”
“Why?”
“It was said that the man cheated at cards. There was a row in the sleeping quarters. I investigated and....”
“Is it not usual for the men themselves to attend to such matters?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why the exception?”
The sergeant hesitated. Corville knew that Smith, like all sergeants in the French army, had greater power and responsibility than is to be found in almost any other army in the world. In effect Smith had the authority of a second lieutenant in the British Army, and he could have issued his own punishment within limited degrees.
“Why was the man whipped?” repeated Corville impatiently. “Come. Give me the reason.”
“I enquired whether the man would accept my punishment,” said Smith slowly. “He agreed and I sentenced him to clean out the barrack room for a month and to lose half his wine ration for a week.”
Corville nodded. It was a light enough sentence and one that the man would have been grateful to accept.
“Well?”
“The Colonel learned what had happened and saw fit to override my authority. He ordered the man whipped. The first man he ordered to do the whipping is in the cells. He refused. The second is in hospital. He accepted.”
“What happened?”
“He had an accident,” said the sergeant deliberately. “An unfortunate fall down the inner staircase, His nose was broken, his jaw, other injuries not so serious.” The ghost of a smile trembled at the comer of the sergeant’s lips. “For some odd reason he seemed to believe that someone, he didn’t know who, attacked him.”
“I see.” Corville knew better than to question too closely.
The legionnaires had an incredible sense of comradeship and would have been certain to have avenged their disgraced comrade. The first man, the one in the cells, was probably feted with smuggled rations for his defiance of the unloved colonel. The young officer stared at the sergeant.
“Have you reported to the colonel yet?”
“Not yet, sir. It is not my place to supersede you. As my superior officer you will, of course, deliver your message yourself.”
“But you have alerted the guards?”
“Yes, sir. But I cannot do more without direct orders from the colonel.”
“Naturally.” Corville stared at the scarred face of the sergeant. “Tell me, Smith, why haven’t you tried for promotion? With your experience you would be certain to reach officer status.”
“Thank you, sir. You are good to think so.”
“I know so, man.” Corville frowned. “Smith? That is an English name. Are you English?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought so. Why don’t you want promotion?”
“There are two reasons, sir,” said the sergeant, stiffly. “One, to achieve entry to the military school for officer examination I must take French nationality and swear the oath of loyalty. 1 was born an Englishman and, strange as it may seem to you, I prefer to die one.”
“But that can’t be the whole reason?” Corville shook his head. “I too am English but naturally I took the oath the same as we all do. At the expiration of my term, or if I resign, I can always resume my original nationality.” He looked at the sergeant. “You said that there were two reasons?”
“The other is personal, sir.” The sergeant stepped towards the door, unlocked it, and held it open. “Shall I conduct you to the Colonel, sir?”
It was polite, but it was definite and, as he followed the man towards the Colonel’s quarters, Corville had to admit that Smith had been in the right and he himself in the wrong. Mentally he cursed himself for a fool for trying to probe. Before Smith could be accepted as an officer he would have to disclose his true identity for security checking, Obviously he didn’t want to do that. The very name he had chosen to be known by, ‘Smith’, was proof of that.
Corville was still mentally kicking himself for his blunder when they arrived at the quarters of Colonel Marignay.
The Colonel was one of a dying breed. Brave, but without imagination. Stubborn, and yet who firmly believed that his stubbornness was evidence of a strong will. Ignorant, and relying heavily on his inferiors for his informati
on and advice, both of which he disregarded whenever they came into conflict with his own ideas, No longer young he still retained the straight back, the trim figure and the thick hair of a man twenty years his junior. Now his hair was white, his hands thin and veined, his eyes not what they used to be.
He should have been retired years ago.
Instead of that he had used his influence to gain the command of an isolated fort deep in the desert. There, so his superiors thought, he could do no harm and, like an old warhorse set out to graze, they had allowed him to spend his final years surrounded by the military discipline that he had known all his life. Corville had heard of him but as yet they had never met. The young officer’s duties had kept him much in the desert where, in disguise, he had ferreted out information for Colonel Le Farge whom he regarded as the real commanding officer. For the purposes of the records, rank, and, more important, of allaying suspicion, Corville was attached to the garrison at Onassis.
The Colonel looked up from his desk as the young man entered, watched critically while he saluted, then gestured towards a chair.
“Sit down, de Corville. I hear that you had a spot of bother on your way here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Twenty men dead.” Marignay shook his head. “Bad, de Corville. Too bad. How did you come to let so many die?”
It was typical of the man that he should use Corville’s full title. As typical as that he should automatically blame the young man for the dead legionnaires without first finding out the facts. Corville cleared his throat and stared at the Colonel.
“I have important information, sir, which must be sent at once to Colonel Le Farge at Sidi bel Abbes.” He frowned at the expression on the old man’s face. “I understand that you were informed of my coming, sir?”
“No.”
“Has no messenger reached you?”
