Part 7

Lennard nodded. Each one of the German snipers--if sufficiently lucky to carry on his profession for a day or two--acquired an individuality and a name. Hermann was an especially dangerous neighbour who lurked somewhere in a ruined cottage that lay between the lines where they bent away slightly from each other. He rarely fired except to kill, and hid himself so well that not one of the numerous patrols sent out had succeeded in discovering his lair.

The two subalterns chatted awhile over their cigarettes, while the red gold of the western sky faded into rose. They talked of the little incidents of mess and trench, magnified by their isolation from the main stream of life, and then, harking back, of the things that once had been so important to them in London town, and were now so dwindled and remote. A year ago Lennard was a critic who was read, and Wilson, the tall subaltern, a painter whose first success was hanging on the line. Both were, or had been, highly polished products of what we called, proudly, civilisation. As they talked the old scenes came back to them, obliterating the present. At last Wilson rose, responsive to a subtle inner sense of time measured, independent of his consciousness.

"Well, so long, old thing," he said, standing up and straightening his tall form, fatigued with so much bending. The momentary forgetfulness was fatal. On the instant a rifle cracked and the lanky subaltern collapsed as though his knees had been knocked from under him.

"My God!" cried Lennard, limb-paralysed by this brutally tragic reassertion of his environment. Trembling, his heart seeming to stop and swell within him, he bent down to his friend. He touched mere clothed flesh, heavy and inert, on which the flies had already settled. They buzzed away, indignantly asserting their right of pasture. A madness of anger at this wanton annihilation of a life that was not just a dull living but an irradiation of the spirit, connoting civilisation, highly conscious, swept over him. He burst into a torrent of incoherent wrathful curses.

"That was 'Ermann, sir," said the observer at the periscope. "I spotted the flash, in among them bricks."

Lennard rose, fiercely vengeful.

"Let me look. Where did you see the flash?"

"Three o'clock from that bit of greenstuff in the middle, sir," replied the man, ceding his place at the periscope. "You'll see a dark spot--that's 'is loophole."

Lennard gazed down into the mirror of the instrument. There was just light enough for him to pick up the spot indicated.

"Very good." He strode, with bent back, down the trench, muttering to himself.

It was night when, rifle in hand, he swung himself nimbly over the parapet. For some minutes he lay flat on the ground at the other side, not moving an inch. Over his head the crack of rifles and the loud, rapid hammer taps of the Maxims recommenced their fusillade against the heap of bricks. From the first shade of dusk he had arranged that a constant enfilading fire be kept up on the sniper's lurking-place. He had no intention of letting Hermann slip away--yet.

He raised his head slightly, fixed his bearings in the gloom and then, still prone, began to nip a way through the wire entanglements. A German flare went up, dazzling with a ghastly light, too brilliant for distinct vision. He lay motionless. As it descended and fizzled out upon the ground he had a clear view of his course. He was aiming at a point in front of the German wire, whence he could enfilade the gap between the heap of bricks and the hostile parapet. Over his head the hard, sharp cracks of his own men's fire followed one another continuously. They would not cease for nearly fifteen minutes yet. Meanwhile Hermann would be lying close. He cut and wrenched at the wire and wriggled forward, grimly disdainful of the barbs that plucked and tore his clothes.

Again and again a soaring German flare stopped his progress. Clearly, this incessant fusillade was making the enemy nervous. At each illumination he lay as if he were one of the bundles of old clothes that occasionally he pushed against. The British parapet darted with fire--awoke a sympathetic crackling somewhere to the right.

At last. He settled himself in a comfortable firing position, couched in the long damp grass. An insect, unaware in its littleness of the large death that whistled above its world, quitted a pendent blade, explored his cheek.

Crack--crack--crack! the last British rifles ceased. There was an instant's stillness, and then yet another flare shot up from the suspicious German trench. It fell, sizzled--illuminating the ruins that he watched with all his faculties focussed, all his nerves coming to a point on his trigger finger--and then the world plunged into blackness. There was silence and impenetrable darkness.

Minute after minute dragged slowly past in a dead hush. Finger on trigger, every fibre tense, the prone figure waited. A primeval self awoke in him--a savage who stalked and could indefinitely maintain his ambush. His senses were as keen as though hyper-stimulated by some strange drug. A grim, patient lust to kill reigned in him.

The minutes passed slowly, slowly. He looked to one of them, not yet arrived, as to a term. When? He felt it approaching, concentrated to a still acuter degree his attention. The trigger seemed to be pressing against his finger. What was that? Surely something was moving there in the gloom--by the ruin. Why did not the flare he had ordered go up? His whole soul went out in a desperate prayer for it as he held his breath and strove with baffled eyes against the darkness.

Suddenly the craved-for light shot up. Perception and trigger-pressure were instantaneous with the flash of its discharge. A running, stooping figure pitched headforemost before the stab of flame from the rifle.

Immediately a vicious fire from the German parapet answered this impertinence. The slayer lay still as death, listening with painfully acute perception to the ugly _phat!_ of bullets in the earth around him. A bomb fell, burst with a deafening report and a blinding flash of flame so close that he marvelled at his escape. By an effort of will he choked down the cough that the fumes provoked.

Rifle-fire at night is infectious. A sporadic and probably harmless duel sputtered up and down the trenches. At last a gun, way back somewhere, sent over a shell, and, as though obedient to this protest from their big brother, the rifles were silenced, one by one. The opposing trenches again lay in darkness and quiet.

The subaltern, assuring himself that all was still, wriggled forward to the body of his victim, lay full-length beside it. Quickly he ran through the dead man's pockets, stuffed a bundle of papers into his own. Then, a rifle in each hand, he crawled back to his own parapet, climbed over and lay down. In an instant he was sound asleep.

It was bright morning when he awoke. High up a lark was pouring out its cheerful song. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, saw the two rifles, and remembered with a smile. Close by him a man was heating some coffee in a mess-tin over a methylated flame. He asked for some and drank it with a pleasant physical sense of his body that was still alive, and could drink. It warmed him. Then he remembered the papers he had taken from the unlucky Hermann. Sipping at the coffee, he read a letter that was among them.

"Dearest Wife and Sweetheart," it ran, "I don't altogether like the hatred of these Englishmen that your letter expresses. They only do their duty as we do ours, and they fight well. Would all this killing were over and we were friends again! It is in a sacred cause, I know--we could not let our culture be stifled--but the sacrifices are heavy. I sometimes wonder whether the old days will ever return, and I shall once more write songs for you to sing in London and in Paris. I can faintly hear a nightingale somewhere, or is it you?--I must close now, as I am just ordered off to a dangerous post, and the dawn will soon be breaking.

"All the love of Karl."

Lennard, moved by a sudden curiosity, looked at the superscription of the envelope, ready addressed. Evidently the sniper had put it in his pocket and forgotten to give it to his comrades before setting out. The name was familiar. He coupled it, Karl ----. His victim was a writer of songs that his wife loved to sing and he to hear. He sat for a moment gazing thoughtfully at the letter, yet without definite thoughts. Then, with a sigh, he rose.

Instantly a bullet smacked against the sandbags, missing his head by a couple of inches.

"Bad shot, that," he murmured as he ducked. "Lucky thing I bagged old Hermann!"

THE MAGIC OF MUHAMMED DIN

The intense heat of the day was already a memory of uneasy sleep, and the distant hills seen across the plain of grey, sun-baked mud were soft in a soft sky. Right across the horizon, as seen from the Political Officer's bungalow, stretched the mountain range, rising from deep blue at the base through a gradation of fairy amethyst and turquoise to a delicate pink suffusing the summits. The Political Officer, his left elbow resting on his writing-table, his fingers caressing the bowl of the old briar whose stem was gripped between white teeth, tobacco-smoke wreathing away from him, contemplated it with bent brows and narrowed eyes. The gaze of that lean face, sallow with many Indian summers, roved not over the distant prospect, tempting though were the transitions and flaws of changing colour on crag and peak to left and right of the point on which his vision was fixed. His expression was stern, the thrust forward of his clean-cut jaw predominant. Æsthetic enjoyment of the aspect of the frontier hills thus perfidiously beautiful in the evening light had no part in his meditations.

The curtain of the door was plucked aside. A long-robed native, white-bearded, entered noiselessly, bowed, with arms outstretched from his sides, stood erect and waited for orders.

The Political Officer responded with a nod to the "_Salaam, Sahib_." His gaze detached itself from the distant view, ranged keenly over the tall figure in front of him. Under the swathes of the green _pagari_ that narrowed the brown forehead a pair of dark eyes of strange intensity met his own. The disturbing effect of their direct gaze was heightened by the bushy white brows under which they glowed. The big, beaked nose, thin-bridged, emphasized their power. The long, white beard spreading over the breast solemnified them with a hint of ancient wisdom. The eyes of the white sahib and the ascetic _Haj_ (as his green turban proclaimed him) met unflinchingly.

"The _Sahib_ asked for the fakir Muhammed Din--is it well, _Sahib_?"

"It is well, _Haj_," replied the Political Officer, a twinkle in his eye and a subtle emphasis on the title.

"Did not the Prophet throw his green mantle over Ali that he might himself escape from his enemies, O Protector of the Religion?" replied the fakir, a little piqued.

"_Maloom_" ("It is known"), said the Political Officer, curtly but with a tone of friendliness. "I called you not to discuss the religion, but to protect it. I have work for you, Muhammed Din--dangerous work."

"It is well, _Sahib_."

"An emissary of our foes is among the tribes, Muhammed Din, and is preaching a false gospel to them. War and the woes of war will surely follow if we do not still his tongue. Listen! You have heard that the infidel Caliph Willem of the West has falsely proclaimed himself a follower of the Prophet that he may use the power of true believers to further his own wicked ends?"

"It is known, _Sahib_."

"He has sent one of his tribe, dressed as a fakir, into the hills to preach a new Jehad. Already the _mullahs_ (priests) are gathering about him. This fakir calls himself Abd-ul-Islam, but he is a Feringhi, no true believer, and no true friend to the religion. Yet he is leading many astray, for he deludes them with a false magic. You will see for yourself. You remember the magic pictures you saw at Karachi?"

"I remember, _Sahib_."

"It is such magic as that. There is none but Muhammed Din I might safely trust to close the mouth of such a rogue; therefore, Muhammed Din"--the eyes of white _sahib_ and Moslem fakir again looked into each other--"I am sending you on the mission. I asked you to come as a fakir because I judged that to be your best disguise. You have come as a _Haj_, which is even better. I do not want this impostor killed, if it can be helped. I want him exposed, discredited. I send you, Muhammed Din." He looked at him with significance as he added:

"You may find an old acquaintance."

The fakir stroked his long beard.

"He shall be brought to you riding backwards upon an ass, and the women shall mock at him' _Sahib_. I swear it."

The Political Officer smiled.

"None can if you cannot, Muhammed Din. Now I will explain these things to you more fully."

The Political Officer spread a map across the table and pointed out the route of the German agent across the Persian frontier and among the hills. His present abiding-place was fairly accurately known. The pseudo-fakir attentively considered the ways to it. Then he drew himself erect.

"It is well, _Sahib_. I will now go."

"You have a plan, Muhammed?"

The fakir smiled grimly.

"This dog has his false magic, _Sahib_, but Muhammed Din knows many magics that are not false. I have sworn."

"Go, then. Allah be with you!"

"And with you, _Sahib_!"

Muhammed Din salaamed once more, lifted the curtain, and passed out. The Political Officer watched him go across the compound, and then bent down to his work again with a little outbreathing of satisfaction. The Secret Service had no more reliable man than Muhammed Din.

* * * * *

The squalid little village high up in a cleft of the brown and barren hills, that gleamed golden aloft where they cut sharply across the intense blue of the sky, was filled with an uncommon concourse of tribesmen. And yet more were arriving. Down the stony paths which led to the village from the heights, up the boulder-strewn, dried-up stream-bed which afforded the easiest passage from below, the hillmen hurried in little groups--a bearded _khan_, a modern rifle on his shoulder, his cummerbund stuck full of knives, followed by a ragged rabble of retainers, variously armed. Their weapons were mementoes of generations of rifle-stealing and gun-running. Lee-Enfields, Lee-Metfords, Martinis, Sniders--all were represented. Not a few carried the old-fashioned _jezail_, the long-barrelled gun with inlaid, curved stock. All had knives.

They swarmed on the rough roadway between the squat stone, windowless houses whose loopholes were eloquent of their owners' outlook on life. They clustered round the stone-parapeted well in the centre of the village, so that the women with the water-pots were richly provided with an excuse for loitering. The clamour of excited voices resounding from the walls was re-echoed at a fiercer shout from the steep, towering hill-sides, stone-terraced near the village into plots of cultivated land.

This was no ordinary assemblage. From far and near the tribesmen swarmed in, and men met face to face whose habitual encounter would have sent both dodging to cover, rifle to the shoulder. The blood-feuds were laid aside. Families that for months had lived in terror of their neighbours across the village street, quitting their domiciles stealthily by the back way when they had occasion to go out, while the sudden rifle-shot of the concealed marksman added steadily to the tale of vendetta victims on both sides, mingled now with the throng, albeit cautiously. Men whose dwellings were a doorless tower which they entered and left by a basket on a rope, who tilled their fields with ever a rifle in their hand, strode now down the street, their dark eyes roving from side to side, and passed their adversaries with scarce a scowl. Mullahs, Koran in hand, their young disciples at their skirts, threaded their way through the crowd, giving and receiving pious salutation, exhorting, preaching, inflaming the fanaticism of passions naturally fierce. The blood-feuds between man and man, village and village, were forgotten in the reawakened, never-extinguished feud between Islam and the infidel. Behind the priests marched men armed to the teeth, their faces working in a frenzy, their eyes inflamed. They were _ghazi_--wrought up to the pitch of fervour where their own life is a predetermined sacrifice, so that they may first slay an unbeliever, sure of immediate Paradise as their reward.

Above the murmur of voices came the continual drone:

"_La Allah il Allah!_ There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet!"

It re-echoed down the valley in sudden shouts.

Into this excited throng strode the green turban, the venerable figure of Muhammed Din, piously telling his beads. Men jostled one another out of his way, for this fakir was quite obviously an especially holy man, one who had made the pilgrimage. Giving and receiving the Moslem greeting, "May the peace of Allah be with you!" he inquired the house of the village mullah, and made his way towards it.

He met the priest just on the point of quitting his dwelling. The mullah had a busy and important look. It was a great day for him.

"The peace of Allah be with you!" said Muhammed Din.

"And with you, O holy man!" replied the mullah. He scented an application for hospitality. "Blessed is the day that you come to us, for Allah worketh wonders in my village. Many have come to witness them. Alas! that you did not come before, O holy one, or my house that I have already given up to others would be yours!"

"A corner and a crust of bread, O Mullah!"

"Alas! Allah be my witness! Neither remains to me, O holy one--but I will lodge you with a pious man when the saint whom Allah has sent to us has finished the wonders he is about to show. I must hurry, O holy one! for the moment is at hand. The peace of Allah be with you!"

"Allah has guided my footsteps to you, O Mullah, for I have come from a far land to see these wonders. I will accompany you, for it is His will."

"Hurry, then!" said the priest irritably, "or Shere Khan's house will be full. Allah knoweth that I praise Him for thy coming!" he added by way of afterthought.

The house of Shere Khan, the headman of the village, was besieged by a turbulent crowd of tribesmen, who jostled one another for entrance. In view of the limited space within, only those known to be most influential were admitted. They deposited their weapons as they entered.

Muhammed Din followed the mullah, who bustled in with an air of great importance. The largest room of Shere Khan's house, a gloomy, stone-walled apartment, almost completely dark since the loopholes high up were stuffed with rags, was set aside for the occasion. More than two-thirds of it was already filled with tribesmen, who squatted on the floor. The remaining portion was rigidly kept clear by one or two of Shere Khan's armed retainers. "Sit farther back, O Yakub Khan! More space, O Protector of the Poor! Farther back, O Yusuf, lest the miracles about to be performed by the will of Allah scorch thee! Back, back, O children of the Prophet! I entreat ye!" The entreaty was emphasized by sundry kicks which the sentries grinningly delivered with a sense of the privileges proper to such an occasion.

The wall at the end of the clear space was whitened. High up on the other wall, behind the tribesmen, was a newly erected box of wood, large enough to hold a man, supported on pillars of light timber, and only to be reached by a ladder, of which there was at the moment no sign. The tribesmen turned their heads curiously towards this unusual contrivance and nudged and whispered to one another.

"Behold the cage in which the saint keeps the devils over which Allah and the Prophet have given him power!"

Those who were nearest it stirred uneasily.

"What if it should be the will of Allah that they break out of the cage!"

"We are God's and unto God shall we return!" replied his neighbour nervously, quoting the verse of the Koran which gives protection in time of danger. "May Allah protect us!"

Muhammed Din sat modestly among the throng, telling his beads with bent head.

"What thinkest thou of these wonders, O holy one from a far land?" asked the man next to him.

"The wisdom of Allah is inscrutable and much that is hidden shall be yet revealed," replied Muhammed Din solemnly.

There was a stir of expectation throughout the gloomy apartment. The mullah entered by a door at the farther end, near the whitened wall, uttered a sonorous benediction, and sat down, with grave self-satisfaction, in the front row.

One minute more of tense waiting--and then, amid a low murmur from the assembly, the curtain at the far door was again lifted. The "Saint" appeared. For a moment he stood in a dramatic pose, illumined by a ray of light from without as he held back the curtain. Then, dropping it, he strode solemnly forward into the cleared space. Every eye gazed at him with an avid curiosity. The light in the doorway had revealed him as a youngish man, despite the full beard which lent him dignity. His stately carriage of the long Moslem robes, dimly perceived in the gloom, was worthy of his _rôle_.

He stretched out his hands.

"The peace of Allah be with you!" he said in a deep tone that had only the faintest tinge of a European accent.

In a low deep chant of awed voices the assembly returned the salutation.

"O children of the Prophet! Men of the hills! Greeting! Greeting not from me but from the greatest Sultan of the world!" He spoke in their own dialect, but with a strong admixture of Persian words. "Listen! Ye know already--for his fame has passed the confines of the earth--that the great Sultan Willem of the Franks was visited by a vision from God, and that having had truth revealed unto him he turned aside from the error of his ways and embraced the true faith. Written in great letters of gold over the Sultan's palace shall ye find the sacred words: 'There is no God but God and Mohammed is His Prophet!'"

He stopped to allow his words their full effect. A murmur of wonderment came from his audience. "A-ah! God is great! Unto Him be the praise!"

He resumed.

"And with him turned all his vizirs and mullahs and khans from the false belief and called on Allah and Mohammed. I--even I, Abd-ul-Islam, who stand before you--am one of them. The Sultan Willem issued a decree to all his people that they should believe in the true faith--and lo! Allah wrought a miracle and they all believed, destroying their false mosques and building new ones to the glory of the Prophet. Great is Allah and Mohammed His Prophet that these things should have come to pass, O children of the Faith! They are hard of belief, for the Franks ye well know are a stiff-necked race. Yet such it is, and my Lord the Sultan hath sent me on an embassy to you that I may tell you these marvellous things. And that ye may more readily believe, Allah in His great mercy has given me power to show you these wonders with your own eyes." His tone took on a deeper, more sonorous solemnity. "O Allah! Allah! In the name of the Prophet, vouchsafe that these thy children may see the great Sultan Willem as he is at this moment!"

He clapped his hands sharply together.