Part 19

Mr. Fisher joined us presently, and we three, through our glasses, examined the shore and desert plains running inland behind the line of telegraph-posts. Before we had steamed ten miles we saw numerous bands of mounted men moving about the dreary wastes, and Mr. Fisher was on thorns to get back as quickly as possible to the telegraph-station (which was now without a white man), and kept on saying: "I must send my wife and Miss Borsen away by the very next steamer. I don't like the look of things at all." He also told me that he had tried to make them go by yesterday's mail-steamer--the one we had "spoken"--but that Miss Borsen would not go until she had definite news of her brother's fate, and his wife would not leave her at Jask alone. "They'll have to stay there for another fortnight now," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"She doesn't seem very pleased to see me," I said bitterly.

"I'm afraid you rather annoyed her the last time you were here."

"How? Carrying her over that swampy place?"

"Yes," he nodded; "she thought it an insult."

"If she never gets a bigger insult than that she won't do badly," I answered angrily. "However, I'm sorry; but she won't let me tell her so."

At last, about half-past four, Mr. Fisher thought we were abreast the place where the last telephone message had come from--the five hundred and twentieth telegraph-post I think he said it was--so I turned the "_B.A._"'s bows inshore, with Ellis heaving the lead every few seconds, to warn us of shoaling water.

It was a shallow, sandy bay with nothing to be seen on the desolate shore except the endless line of telegraph-posts. I anchored three hundred yards off and took ashore Mr. Fisher, a native telegraphist, and the portable telephone apparatus.

They connected this to the telegraph-wire and tried to call up Jask. If Jask answered, we were on the near side of the cut wire; and, as Jask did answer, it showed that the spot where the tragedy had taken place must be still farther away.

So back to the "_B.A._" we went, and I heard Miss Borsen asking Mr. Fisher, with a half-sob, whether he had found anything.

We weighed anchor and felt our way, carefully, still farther along to the east'ard.

Presently the signal-man shouted to me that he saw someone on the beach, and, looking through my telescope, I made out a man hopping down towards the water's edge on one leg and waving his arms to attract attention.

I called out to Mr. Fisher that we had found the place, pushed the "_B.A._" in as far as I dared, anchored, and he and the man with the telephone-box came ashore with me.

"The wire's cut about two hundred yards on the left," Mr. Scarlett shouted after us. "I can see it trailing on the ground."

Griffiths pulled us in to the spot where the man--a Goanese he was--was waiting for us, squatting down close to the sea. As I jumped ashore I realized why he had been hopping--his left foot had been roughly hacked off above the ankle. He was gesticulating and sobbing, jerking his head backwards and forwards. Raving mad I thought him; certainly he was half-delirious, and as he held out both his arms towards us I shuddered, for he had no right hand, only a stump of a forearm.

"Right hand, left foot--a common custom," Mr. Fisher said, quite calmly, as he let him sip from his water-bottle and tried to calm him.

Presently he was helped upright, and went hopping through the sand to the top of the beach, where he clung to a telegraph-pole, close to the foot of which were the remains of a wood fire and what I took to be charred sticks.

He began speaking very rapidly.

He stopped, and Mr. Fisher led me away just as the repair party landed about two hundred yards farther along the beach.

"Would you mind going and giving them a hand? They will work better if you do. I must stay here."

I thought his request strange. His manner was very strange: his eyes were burning with fear and disgust.

I did as he asked me and walked along to where the telegraph-wire lay on the sand, coiled in spirals like a snake. The repairing people were very smart at their job, fixed a rope and tackle from one cut end to the other, and then hauled taut the great length of wire between the two nearest telegraph-posts, mounting their portable ladders and fixing things in a most seamanlike way, until they had the wire as taut as they could haul it, with six or seven feet of rope tackle bridging the gap and the two cut ends of the wire hanging down. Then they commenced to put in a splice, and worked so cleverly and systematically that I was quite interested.

The sun was getting close to the horizon by the time the wire was properly joined together and their work finished. Mr. Fisher came to see the job, and the telephone-box was brought along and messages sent into Jask and to the nearest relay station on the other side.

"Well, that is done," he said, with a sigh of relief, "until they cut it again."

The repairing people took their gear back to the "_B.A._" and we were left alone. He took me to where we had landed, and I saw the mutilated Goanese sitting close to the coffin, which I had not noticed being brought ashore.

"Did you find Borsen's body?" I asked.

He nodded very sadly. "Yes; all that was left of it--a few charred bones. They had cut him in pieces and burnt them."

I shuddered, and knew that what I had mistaken for charred sticks had been bones. That was why he had sent me away.

There was nothing more to say, and we stood looking out over the sea, with rage burning within us, at the thought of the hideous, useless tragedy which had taken place at this spot only two days ago.

The glorious sunset was bathing everything--the sea, my little launch, the shore--in a flood of molten gold, shading to the tenderest pinks as it reached the barren mountains standing up so clear and sharp against the silvery, green sky behind them. The radiant glow threw our shadows and the shadows of those gaunt telegraph-poles slanting across the sands, far across the trackless desert towards the feet of the mountains. If we moved our bodies, our shadows swept in huge arcs across the infinite silence, and, as we moved our arms, shot out huge, ghastly tentacles horrid to see. The setting sun seemed to mock us in its beauty, to laugh and say: "See, I rejoice in the wild wastes of eternal sands. I wash their edges with my golden sea. I paint them with my wondrous tints, and your ghostly shadows, and the shadows of the telegraph-posts you have dared to place there, are the only blots on my fair handiwork."

A beautiful sunset generally gives me a feeling of hope and of trust in a glorious future. That evening I felt myself trembling with an ill-defined fear of impending danger, and as though we and that lonely telegraph-line had trespassed, had forced ourselves and our civilization upon a land where nature, primitive and unchanged, held her sway, and that we too should have to pay the penalty of our vandalism, even as poor Borsen had already paid for his.

The dinghy was coming ashore, her sides glowing with light, the blades of her oars dropping showers of golden spray as Griffiths lifted them from the surface of the sea.

I stirred myself as the bows rasped on the beach, and helped to carry the coffin into the boat, not daring to look behind me. It was very heavy, and I looked enquiringly at Mr. Fisher.

"Sand," he said, and I understood.

The poor Goanese had crawled a little distance away, and was digging at the sand with one hand. We found that he had buried his telephone-box--the one by which he had sent that interrupted message into Jask, and we quickly brought it to light. I knew what the look of satisfaction in his eyes meant--he had saved it from falling into the hands of the brigands, and had been faithful to his trust. The fellow deserved a V.C., but seemed perfectly contented when Mr. Fisher spoke a few words of praise to him.

We pulled away from the appalling loneliness of the telegraph-wire and gaunt poles, and as we came alongside, the sun slid down below the horizon, and Hartley, the signal-man, struck our little ensign.

What Mr. Fisher told Miss Borsen I do not know. I heard him take her into the little cabin, slide the door across, and leave her there. The port-holes were close to me as I stood by the compass giving orders to the helmsman, and her broken-hearted sobs seemed to tear their way right through me. Poor little fragile, lonely thing, and I had been so fiercely angry at her scorn of me! I would have given the whole world for her to forgive me and to be able to comfort her.

Presently her sobs ceased; possibly she slept. I dared not look through the port-holes to see, and gave my orders in a whisper lest they should disturb her. You could not hear a sound aboard the _Bunder Abbas_ except the noise of the engines and the occasional tinkle of cooking-pots as the dismal cook went on with his everlasting washing of them.

On the way back to Jask Mr. Fisher told me all that he had been able to learn from the Goanese. The morning after Borsen had sent off the pay-chest all his native employees deserted, so he and the Goanese had to continue their inspection alone. They thought that the brigands would not molest them; but when these cruel brutes galloped up and found the money-chest gone, they were so enraged that they had killed Borsen, mutilated the Goanese (as you know), and galloped away again. They probably thought that the wretched telegraphist would die of sun and thirst, and so he would had he not bravely crawled to the wire, dragging the telephone-box after him, and with consummate pluck, considering the horrible agony he must have been in, had thrown up the connecting wire till its hook caught the telegraph-wire overhead, and enabled him to send the message into Jask. This was the message which had been telegraphed to Jask, from there to Muscat, and had brought us a hundred and twenty miles across the sea to save his life. He had not been able to complete it, because the Baluchis--some of them--had ridden back and cut the wire between him and the telegraph-station. There he had been for more than forty-eight hours without one drop of water. It was indeed marvellous how he had survived.

On the way back, Percy and the dismal cook prepared as lavish a meal as our little meat-safe and a small store of tinned food (kept for special occasions) could provide, but I was in no fit mood to eat, and stayed alone at the wheel. I steered to the south'ard, to get well away from the land before laying off my course to Jask, picked up the light shown from the telegraph-station some time before midnight, and anchored close in under the rocks.

I believe that Miss Borsen slept all the way back. Poor little lady, the strain of the last two days must have been awful, and she must have been dead tired. I thought that the sight of me would increase her misery, so I did not go down on deck when Mr. Fisher took her ashore.

Leaving Mr. Scarlett to see that everything was fixed up for the night, I turned in, weary in mind and body, and dreamt once more that I was carrying Miss Borsen down the path from the telegraph-station, pursued by a score of mounted Baluchis, and that Griffiths was trying to bring the dinghy ashore, but had lost one oar and was turning circles. I was yelling for him to come my way, when Jassim suddenly appeared between me and the sea.

I jumped up in a perspiration, and found Mr. Scarlett bending over me.

"What's the matter, sir? You're making a terrible noise. I had to give you a shake."

I murmured some apology, and he left me to sleep again.

Mr. Fisher had asked me to go up to the telegraph-station early next morning, and so I did, landing in time to have some "chota-hazri" with him in the veranda. The old head-boy, wearing his best yellow turban, came forward for my helmet, and smiled a greeting.

"Have some coffee; there are some bananas too--yesterday's steamer brought them," Mr. Fisher said.

I asked him how Miss Borsen was, but he did not know. His wife had been with her all night, and he had not seen her.

He tried to talk of many things, but with manifest effort. At last he blurted out: "The truth is, affairs are in a very unpleasant position. It's impossible to disguise the fact any longer. Our coolies, and even some of the house boys, are leaving us. They all say the same thing: don't want to go, but they have wives and children, and they don't want to be killed. They are going to their village, and presently, they say, they will come back. 'Presently' means," he said bitterly, "if the tribesmen don't kill us all. There is no doubt in my mind that they intend to attack this place. Almost daily I get warnings from the Mir of Old Jask, who's a feeble, well-meaning old chap, with all he can do to look after his own town, and quite unable to spare us any of his soldiers. Not that they would be of any help. I've tried them, so know.

"You see," he continued, "I have no absolute proof of any rising more formidable than what has just occurred. No one knows what is going on behind those beastly mountains. I've sent plenty of warnings both to Karachi and to Muscat (I knew that), even to Teheran; but the answer is always the same: Sit tight, and if anything definite happens, let us know.

"Well, you are here, that's something; and I don't mind telling you that the presence of your little launch makes all the difference in the world. Up there, right away beyond those hateful hills (he had risen and was pointing away towards the gaunt Baluchistan ranges), in every village for a hundred miles or more, it is known you are anchored here; and the head-men at this very moment probably are deliberating whether they had better not keep quiet till you steam away."

"I'm hanged if I'm going!" I said, rising too. "If I'm ordered away I'll break down my engine and take a month to repair it."

He smiled. "I want you to come round our little defences with me and make suggestions. We have nineteen Eurasians here who can be trusted with rifles. If the worst came to the worst we might hold out for a week until help came; but I wish with all my heart that those two women were not here. It's getting on my nerves. I find myself peering through the big telescope up there hour after hour, searching the desert. I can't tear myself away from it, and at night I can't sleep. This place at the best of times is one of the worst holes in the world, and after being stuck here for two solid years my mind is so enfeebled that it is almost impossible to concentrate my thoughts.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you!" he continued; "I sent a telegram to Duckworth last night informing him of yesterday's proceedings."

I had forgotten all about doing this, so, before any reply could be received, I wired again that I considered it advisable to remain at Jask on account of the disturbed condition of the surrounding district. Commander Duckworth might laugh at my self-assurance for imagining that the little "_B.A._" could be of much use, but I did not think that he would--nor did I care, so long as he did not order me away. My whole aim in life now seemed centred round the forlorn little lady with the sad grey eyes; and even if she would not make friends with me again, I hoped to be able to protect her. I knew perfectly well that this was the impelling force which decided me to remain there.

The telegram having been sent, Mr. Fisher took me round the whole position.

As you know, the telegraph buildings were built on the rocky end of the peninsula and surrounded by a strong, loopholed wall. He explained to me that there was no probability of an attack either from the sides or from the end, because the Baluchis and Afghans hated the sea, and nothing would induce them to get into a boat.

If they came, they must attack along the neck of the peninsula, and up the open, sloping space below the wall. Across this, as you already know, there was a small breastwork of earth, with a still smaller trench behind it, looking much more like an elongated vegetable-marrow bed than a defence work and, fifty yards lower down, two rows of barbed-wire railings stretching across from sea to sea.

Five hundred yards away, on the narrowest portion of the peninsula, and commanding the landing place to the east--on our right as we looked inland--was the ruined sheikh's fort, or Old Fort, which I had explored on my first visit. It was half-hidden in a fold of the ground and by some date-palm trees. A thousand yards away on the western side--our left-hand side--commanding the beach and landing place there, was the new sheikh's fort, or New Fort, where the custom-house officers had been hanged by the Baluchis on their way back from destroying Bungi and Sudab. Between these were perhaps a score of native "matting" huts. The whole of the sloping neck of the peninsula afforded no cover whatever; but on the right side of the slope, just between the line of barbed-wire and the baby entrenchment was a line of more substantial huts belonging to the coolies and other servants of the telegraph staff.

I don't pretend to be a soldier; but it struck me immediately that this line of huts must be destroyed. It interfered with the fire space from the loopholed wall. Also I told Mr. Fisher that the half-ruined sheikh's house--the Old Fort--must be pulled down, as it would give grand cover for an attacking force.

He shook his head. "I daren't do that; it belongs to the Mir of Jask."

"If you don't pull it down, blow it up," I said, smiling. "You can tell him it was an accident."

All sorts of plans ran through my head. I suggested this and that--twenty different schemes--and rather swept Mr. Fisher off his feet with suggestions. "The first thing to do?" he asked, passing his hand nervously across his forehead, as if he only wanted to be told one thing at a time.

"Blow up the Old Fort!" I told him, and he promised to start right away, as soon as he could get hold of his people. He took me up on the roof of the signal station, where the big telescope stood on its tripod, and I had a grand view of the surroundings of Old Jask, eight miles away, and the wriggling track which led to it round swampy inlets of the sea; of the dreary wastes of sand stretching east and west as far as the eye could see till they lost themselves in the mountains; of the interminable telegraph-poles dwindling away in the distance along the shore line to the east'ard and to the west'ard (to our left as we looked down), of the little _Bunder Abbas_ under her now trim awnings, and of a cluster of dhows moored close to the new sheikh's fort and the village of New Jask.

From force of habit Mr. Fisher slued round the telescope and diligently searched the plains at the foot of the mountains, in whose ravines and valleys the wild tribesmen were concealed.

"Can't see a single band of them this morning," he said with much relief. "The _Bunder Abbas_ is the cause of that."

Afterwards I returned aboard her and sent Hartley, the signal-man, to the telegraph-station, so that I could communicate with Mr. Fisher and he with me at any time. I also sent Jaffa to Old Jask to try to obtain news in the bazaar there.

That done, I had a yarn with Mr. Scarlett. A great change had come over him since he had got rid of his snake bracelet. I am sure he was fatter; the lines in his face were certainly not so deep, nor his eyes so sunken. He had lost that furtive look in them and that vulture appearance. He received the news that I was going to stay here, and that there would probably be some fighting, with positive pleasure.

"Anything we can do to help the poor little lass sir! Now, a Maxim, that's what's wanted up there (pointing to a prominent corner on the flat roof of the main building); from there it could sweep the whole approach. We might lend 'em one of ours if it came to the pinch. Eh, sir?"

"Right oh!" I told him. "Directly we get permission to stay, you can mount one there."

Permission did come, Hartley semaphoring the telegram that very afternoon, and Mr. Scarlett waking me to give the good news. I could swear that he was as pleased as I was.

For the next few days I spent most of my time on shore, landing at sunrise and supervising, in a sort of way, the destruction of the ruined sheikh's house, and the strengthening of the breastwork and the wire entanglements. I say "in a sort of way", because neither Mr. Fisher nor I knew which of us should take entire charge of the defence preparations, with the result that there was a lot of unnecessary work done and some muddling. At any rate the one or two charges exploded in the walls of the Old Fort did not do much damage, and I did not care to interfere.

Meanwhile Mr. Scarlett busied himself preparing the corner of the roof of the telegraph buildings and placing big balks of timber behind the parapet to receive the mounting of a Maxim, if the occasion arose. In spite of the desertion of most of the servants, labour was plentiful, natives of all nationalities and shades of colour clamouring for a job. Many of them were Afghans and Baluchis, and probably were spies; but the only information they could give was that we were expecting an attack and preparing for it, which it was good for them to know. We set these people to work strengthening the barbed-wire fence and the "vegetable-marrow" trench.

At first I had most of my meals with Mr. Fisher and his wife--Miss Borsen never joined us. In fact, I never saw more of her than a flick of a skirt as she fled round a corner one day when I had appeared unexpectedly. She was so obviously avoiding me that it became most unpleasant, and later on I never went to the house unless I was obliged to do so.

This worried me a good deal--the fact of her refusing to forgive me, I mean---and took away a great deal of my enjoyment.

In spite of this the days went past very quickly. Hartley occasionally saw bands of mounted people wandering about the plains and the coast, but the telegraph-wire was untouched. Jaffa could report nothing more definite than a general feeling of uneasiness; trading dhows came and went, and, day after day, trains of camels and donkeys shuffled backwards and forwards through the eight miles of sand to Old Jask, loading or unloading them.

Indeed, the only exciting incident was the sudden bursting of a strong "shamel", which scattered the dhows and compelled me to raise steam and take shelter from it round the other side of the peninsula.

A fortnight passed, and the mail-steamer had called and left again without either of the two ladies. This time it was Mrs. Fisher who would not leave her husband, and Miss Borsen who would not leave Mrs. Fisher; so they both stayed--out of a mistaken and foolish sense of duty--much to Mr. Fisher's secret grief.

Then the blow fell, the morning after the steamer sailed.

Of course I always slept on board, and just as daylight was dawning I was awakened by hearing a tremendous fusillade. Mr. Scarlett and I jumped up, peering ashore in the direction from which the noise came, and saw a great number (a multitude they looked in the indistinct light) of people on camels streaming right along the peninsula, firing rifles as they rode, whilst a furious burst of firing farther away, in the direction of the new village and the New Fort, told us that another band must be attacking that.

The crew of the _Bunder Abbas_ were tumbling to their guns, and Mr. Scarlett jumped down on deck to see that everything was ready.

Fascinated, I watched that mad rush of shrieking, firing natives. Leaping off their camels, two or three hundred of them began advancing up the slope towards the telegraph building, stopping to fire, moving on, and stopping again.

"For God's sake get those guns going!" I yelled down.

"In a minute, sir, in a minute!" Mr. Scarlett's voice, calm and collected, came back.