Chapter 14

In spite of their friendship there was the keenest professional rivalry between the two men. Either would have sacrificed himself to help his companion, but either would also have sacrificed his companion to help his paper. Never did a jockey yearn for a winning mount as keenly as each of them longed to have a full column in a morning edition whilst every other daily was blank. They were perfectly frank about the matter. Each professed himself ready to steal a march on his neighbour, and each recognised that the other’s duty to his employer was far higher than any personal consideration.

The third man was Anerley, of the _Gazette_--young, inexperienced, and rather simple-looking. He had a droop of the lip, which some of his more intimate friends regarded as a libel upon his character, and his eyes were so slow and so sleepy that they suggested an affectation. A leaning towards soldiering had sent him twice to autumn manoeuvres, and a touch of colour in his descriptions had induced the proprietors of the _Gazette_ to give him a trial as a war-special. There was a pleasing diffidence about his bearing which recommended him to his experienced companions, and if they had a smile sometimes at his guileless ways, it was soothing to them to have a comrade from whom nothing was to be feared. From the day that they left the telegraph-wire behind them at Sarras, the man who was mounted upon a 15-guinea 13-4 Syrian was delivered over into the hands of the owners of the two fastest polo-ponies that ever shot down the Ghezireh ground. The three had dismounted and led their beasts under the welcome shade. In the brassy, yellow glare every branch above threw so black and solid a shadow that the men involuntarily raised their feet to step over them.

“The palm makes an excellent hat-rack,” said Scott, slinging his revolver and his water-bottle over the little upward-pointing pegs which bristle from the trunk. “As a shade tree, however, it isn’t an unqualified success. Curious that in the universal adaptation of means to ends something a little less flimsy could not have been devised for the tropics.”

“Like the banyan in India.”

“Or the fine hardwood trees in Ashantee, where a whole regiment could picnic under the shade.”

“The teak tree isn’t bad in Burmah, either. By Jove, the baccy has all come loose in the saddle-bag! That long-cut mixture smokes rather hot for this climate. How about the baggles, Anerley?”

“They’ll be here in five minutes.”

Down the winding path which curved among the rocks the little train of baggage-camels was daintily picking its way. They came mincing and undulating along, turning their heads slowly from side to side with the air of a self-conscious woman. In front rode the three Berberee body-servants upon donkeys, and behind walked the Arab camel-boys. They had been travelling for nine long hours, ever since the first rising of the moon, at the weary camel-drag of two and a half miles an hour, but now they brightened, both beasts and men, at the sight of the grove and the riderless horses. In a few minutes the loads were unstrapped, the animals tethered, a fire lighted, fresh water carried up from the river, and each camel-boy provided with his own little heap of tibbin laid in the centre of the table-cloth, without which no well-bred Arabian will condescend to feed. The dazzling light without, the subdued half-tones within, the green palm-fronds outlined against the deep blue sky, the flitting, silent-footed Arab servants, the crackling of sticks, the reek of a lighting fire, the placid supercilious heads of the camels, they all come back in their dreams to those who have known them.

Scott was breaking eggs into a pan and rolling out a love-song in his rich, deep voice. Anerley, with his head and arms buried in a deal packing-case, was working his way through strata of tinned soups, bully beef, potted chicken, and sardines to reach the jams which lay beneath. The conscientious Mortimer, with his notebook upon his knee, was jotting down what the railway engineer had told him at the line-end the day before. Suddenly he raised his eyes and saw the man himself on his chestnut pony, dipping and rising over the broken ground.

“Hullo! Here’s Merryweather!”

“A pretty lather his pony is in! He’s had her at that hand-gallop for hours, by the look of her. Hullo, Merryweather, hullo!”

The engineer, a small, compact man with a pointed red beard, had made as though he would ride past their camp without word or halt. Now he swerved, and easing his pony down to a canter, he headed her towards them.

“For God’s sake, a drink!” he croaked. “My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth.”

Mortimer ran with the water-bottle, Scott with the whisky-flask, and Anerley with the tin pannikin. The engineer drank until his breath failed him.

“Well, I must be off,” said he, striking the drops from his red moustache.

“Any news?”

“A hitch in the railway construction. I must see the general. It’s the devil not having a telegraph.”

“Anything we can report?” Out came three notebooks.

“I’ll tell you after I’ve seen the general.”

“Any dervishes?”

“The usual shaves. Hud-up, Jinny! Good-bye!”

With a soft thudding upon the sand, and a clatter among the stones the weary pony was off upon her journey once more.

“Nothing serious, I suppose?” said Mortimer, staring after him.

“Deuced serious,” cried Scott. “The ham and eggs are burned! No--it’s all right--saved, and done to a turn! Pull the box up, Anerley. Come on, Mortimer, stow that notebook! The fork is mightier than the pen just at present. What’s the matter with you, Anerley?”

“I was wondering whether what we have just seen was worth a telegram.”

“Well, it’s for the proprietors to say if it’s worth it. Sordid money considerations are not for us. We must wire about something just to justify our khaki coats and our putties.”

“But what is there to say?”

Mortimer’s long, austere face broke into a smile over the youngster’s innocence. “It’s not quite usual in our profession to give each other tips,” said he. “However, as my telegram is written, I’ve no objection to your reading it. You may be sure that I would not show it to you if it were of the slightest importance.”

Anerley took up the slip of paper and read:--

Merryweather obstacles stop journey confer general stop nature difficulties later stop rumours dervishes.

“This is very condensed,” said Anerley, with wrinkled brows.

“Condensed!” cried Scott. “Why, it’s sinfully garrulous. If my old man got a wire like that his language would crack the lamp-shades. I’d cut out half this; for example, I’d have out ‘journey,’ and ‘nature,’ and ‘rumours.’ But my old man would make a ten-line paragraph of it for all that.”

“How?”

“Well, I’ll do it myself just to show you. Lend me that stylo.” He scribbled for a minute in his notebook. “It works out somewhat on these lines”:--

Mr. Charles H. Merryweather, the eminent railway engineer, who is at present engaged in superintending the construction of the line from Sarras to the front, has met with considerable obstacles to the rapid completion of his important task--

“Of course the old man knows who Merryweather is, and what he is about, so the word ‘obstacles’ would suggest all that to him.”

He has to-day been compelled to make a journey of forty miles to the front, in order to confer with the general upon the steps which are necessary in order to facilitate the work. Further particulars of the exact nature of the difficulties met with will be made public at a later date. All is quiet upon the line of communications, though the usual persistent rumours of the presence of dervishes in the Eastern desert continue to circulate.--_Our own correspondent_.

“How’s that?” cried Scott, triumphantly, and his white teeth gleamed suddenly through his black beard. “That’s the sort of flapdoodle for the dear old public.”

“Will it interest them?”

“Oh, everything interests them. They want to know all about it; and they like to think that there is a man who is getting a hundred a month simply in order to tell it to them.”

“It’s very kind of you to teach me all this.”

“Well, it is a little unconventional, for, after all, we are here to score over each other if we can. There are no more eggs, and you must take it out in jam. Of course, as Mortimer says, such a telegram as this is of no importance one way or another, except to prove to the office that we _are_ in the Soudan, and not at Monte Carlo. But when it comes to serious work it must be every man for himself.”

“Is that quite necessary?”

“Why, of course it is.”

“I should have thought if three men were to combine and to share their news, they would do better than if they were each to act for himself, and they would have a much pleasanter time of it.”

The two older men sat with their bread-and-jam in their hands, and an expression of genuine disgust upon their faces.

“We are not here to have a pleasant time,” said Mortimer, with a flash through his glasses. “We are here to do our best for our papers. How can they score over each other if we do not do the same? If we all combine we might as well amalgamate with Reuter at once.”

“Why, it would take away the whole glory of the profession!” cried Scott. “At present the smartest man gets his stuff first on the wires. What inducement is there to be smart if we all share and share alike?”

“And at present the man with the best equipment has the best chance,” remarked Mortimer, glancing across at the shot-silk polo ponies and the cheap little Syrian grey. “That is the fair reward of foresight and enterprise. Every man for himself, and let the best man win.”

“That’s the way to find who the best man is. Look at Chandler. He would never have got his chance if he had not played always off his own bat. You’ve heard how he pretended to break his leg, sent his fellow-correspondent off for the doctor, and so got a fair start for the telegraph-office.”

“Do you mean to say that was legitimate?”

“Everything is legitimate. It’s your wits against my wits.”

“I should call it dishonourable.”

“You may call it what you like. Chandler’s paper got the battle and the other’s didn’t. It made Chandler’s name.”

“Or take Westlake,” said Mortimer, cramming the tobacco into his pipe. “Hi, Abdul, you may have the dishes! Westlake brought his stuff down by pretending to be the Government courier, and using the relays of Government horses. Westlake’s paper sold half a million.”

“Is that legitimate also?” asked Anerley, thoughtfully.

“Why not?”

“Well, it looks a little like horse-stealing and lying.”

“Well, _I_ think I should do a little horse-stealing and lying if I could have a column to myself in a London daily. What do you say, Scott?”

“Anything short of manslaughter.”

“And I’m not sure that I’d trust you there.”

“Well, I don’t think I should be guilty of newspaper-man-slaughter. That I regard as a distinct breach of professional etiquette. But if any outsider comes between a highly charged correspondent and an electric wire, he does it at his peril. My dear Anerley, I tell you frankly that if you are going to handicap yourself with scruple you may just as well be in Fleet Street as in the Soudan. Our life is irregular. Our work has never been systematised. No doubt it will be some day, but the time is not yet. Do what you can and how you can, and be first on the wires; that’s my advice to you; and also, that when next you come upon a campaign you bring with you the best horse that money can buy. Mortimer may beat me or I may beat Mortimer, but at least we know that between us we have the fastest ponies in the country. We have neglected no chance.”

“I am not so certain of that,” said Mortimer, slowly. “You are aware, of course, that though a horse beats a camel on twenty miles, a camel beats a horse on thirty.”

“What, one of those camels?” cried Anerley in astonishment. The two seniors burst out laughing.

“No, no, the real high-bred trotter--the kind of beast the dervishes ride when they make their lightning raids.”

“Faster than a galloping horse?”

“Well, it tires a horse down. It goes the same gait all the way, and it wants neither halt nor drink, and it takes rough ground much better than a horse. They used to have long distance races at Halfa, and the camel always won at thirty.”

“Still, we need not reproach ourselves, Scott, for we are not very likely to have to carry a thirty-mile message. They will have the field telegraph next week.”

“Quite so. But at the present moment--”

“I know, my dear chap; but there is no motion of urgency before the house. Load baggles at five o’clock; so you have just three hours clear. Any sign of the evening pennies?”

Mortimer swept the northern horizon with his binoculars. “Not in sight yet.”

“They are quite capable of travelling during the heat of the day. Just the sort of thing evening pennies _would_ do. Take care of your match, Anerley. These palm groves go up like a powder magazine if you set them alight. Bye-bye.” The two men crawled under their mosquito-nets and sank instantly into the easy sleep of those whose lives are spent in the open.

Young Anerley stood with his back against a palm tree and his briar between his lips, thinking over the advice which he had received. After all, they were the heads of the profession, these men, and it was not for him, the newcomer, to reform their methods. If they served their papers in this fashion, then he must do the same. They had at least been frank and generous in teaching him the rules of the game. If it was good enough for them it was good enough for him.

It was a broiling afternoon, and those thin frills of foam round the black, glistening necks of the Nile boulders looked delightfully cool and alluring. But it would not be safe to bathe for some hours to come. The air shimmered and vibrated over the baking stretch of sand and rock. There was not a breath of wind, and the droning and piping of the insects inclined one for sleep. Somewhere above a hoopoe was calling. Anerley knocked out his ashes, and was turning towards his couch, when his eye caught something moving in the desert to the south. It was a horseman riding towards them as swiftly as the broken ground would permit. A messenger from the army, thought Anerley; and then, as he watched, the sun suddenly struck the man on the side of the head, and his chin flamed into gold. There could not be two horsemen with beards of such a colour. It was Merryweather, the engineer, and he was returning. What on earth was he returning for? He had been so keen to see the general, and yet he was coming back with his mission unaccomplished. Was it that his pony was hopelessly foundered? It seemed to be moving well. Anerley picked up Mortimer’s binoculars, and a foam-bespattered horse and a weary koorbash-cracking man came cantering up the centre of the field. But there was nothing in his appearance to explain the mystery of his return. Then as he watched them they dipped into a hollow and disappeared. He could see that it was one of those narrow khors which led to the river, and he waited, glass in hand, for their immediate reappearance. But minute passed after minute and there was no sign of them. That narrow gully appeared to have swallowed them up. And then with a curious gulp and start he saw a little grey cloud wreathe itself slowly from among the rocks and drift in a long, hazy shred over the desert. In an instant he had torn Scott and Mortimer from their slumbers.

“Get up, you chaps!” he cried. “I believe Merryweather has been shot by dervishes.”

“And Reuter not here!” cried the two veterans, exultantly clutching at their notebooks. “Merryweather shot! Where? When? How?”

In a few words Anerley explained what he had seen.

“You heard nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, a shot loses itself very easily among rocks. By George, look at the buzzards!”

Two large brown birds were soaring in the deep blue heaven. As Scott spoke they circled down and dropped into the little khor.

“That’s good enough,” said Mortimer, with his nose between the leaves of his book. “‘Merryweather headed dervishes stop return stop shot mutilated stop raid communications.’ How’s that?”

“You think he was headed off?”

“Why else should he return?”

“In that case, if they were out in front of him and others cut him off, there must be several small raiding parties.”

“I should judge so.”

“How about the ‘mutilated’?”

“I’ve fought against Arabs before.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Sarras.”

“I think I’ll race you in,” said Scott.

Anerley stared in astonishment at the absolutely impersonal way in which these men regarded the situation. In their zeal for news it had apparently never struck them that they, their camp, and their servants were all in the lion’s mouth. But even as they talked there came the harsh, importunate rat-tat-tat of an irregular volley from among the rocks, and the high, keening whistle of bullets over their heads. A palm spray fluttered down amongst them. At the same instant the six frightened servants came running wildly in for protection.

It was the cool-headed Mortimer who organised the defence, for Scott’s Celtic soul was so aflame at all this “copy” in hand and more to come that he was too exuberantly boisterous for a commander. The other, with his spectacles and his stern face, soon had the servants in hand. “_Tali henna! Egri!_ What the deuce are you frightened about? Put the camels between the palm trunks. That’s right. Now get the knee-tethers on them. _Quies_! Did you never hear bullets before? Now put the donkeys here. Not much--you don’t get my polo-pony to make a zareba with. Picket the ponies between the grove and the river out of danger’s way. These fellows seem to fire even higher than they did in ’85.”

“That’s got home, anyhow,” said Scott, as they heard a soft, splashing thud like a stone in a mud-bank.

“Who’s hit, then?”

“The brown camel that’s chewing the cud.” As he spoke the creature, its jaw still working, laid its long neck along the ground and closed its large dark eyes.

“That shot cost me 15 pounds,” said Mortimer, ruefully. “How many of them do you make?”

“Four, I think.”

“Only four Bezingers, at any rate; there may be some spearmen.”

“I think not; it is a little raiding-party of rifle-men. By the way, Anerley, you’ve never been under fire before, have you?”

“Never,” said the young pressman, who was conscious of a curious feeling of nervous elation.

“Love and poverty and war, they are all experiences necessary to make a complete life. Pass over those cartridges. This is a very mild baptism that you are undergoing, for behind these camels you are as safe as if you were sitting in the back room of the Authors’ Club.”

“As safe, but hardly as comfortable,” said Scott. “A long glass of hock and seltzer would be exceedingly acceptable. But oh, Mortimer, what a chance! Think of the general’s feelings when he hears that the first action of the war has been fought by the Press column. Think of Reuter, who has been stewing at the front for a week! Think of the evening pennies just too late for the fun. By George, that slug brushed a mosquito off me!”

“And one of the donkeys is hit.”

“This is sinful. It will end in our having to carry our own kits to Khartoum.”

“Never mind, my boy, it all goes to make copy. I can see the headlines--‘Raid on Communications’: ‘Murder of British Engineer’: ‘Press Column Attacked.’ Won’t it be ripping?”

“I wonder what the next line will be,” said Anerley.

“‘Our Special Wounded’!” cried Scott, rolling over on to his back. “No harm done,” he added, gathering himself up again; “only a chip off my knee. This is getting sultry. I confess that the idea of that back room at the Authors’ Club begins to grow upon me.”

“I have some diachylon.”

“Afterwards will do. We’re having a ’appy day with Fuzzy on the rush. I wish he _would_ rush.”

“They’re coming nearer.”

“This is an excellent revolver of mine if it didn’t throw so devilish high. I always aim at a man’s toes if I want to stimulate his digestion. O Lord, there’s our kettle gone!” With a boom like a dinner-gong a Remington bullet had passed through the kettle, and a cloud of steam hissed up from the fire. A wild shout came from the rocks above.

“The idiots think that they have blown us up. They’ll rush us now, as sure as fate; then it will be our turn to lead. Got your revolver, Anerley?”

“I have this double-barrelled fowling-piece.”

“Sensible man! It’s the best weapon in the world at this sort of rough-and-tumble work. What cartridges?”

“Swan-shot.”

“That will do all right. I carry this big bore double-barrelled pistol loaded with slugs. You might as well try to stop one of these fellows with a pea-shooter as with a service revolver.”

“There are ways and means,” said Scott. “The Geneva Convention does not hold south of the first cataract. It’s easy to make a bullet mushroom by a little manipulation of the tip of it. When I was in the broken square at Tamai--”

“Wait a bit,” cried Mortimer, adjusting his glasses. “I think they are coming now.”

“The time,” said Scott, snapping up his watch, “being exactly seventeen minutes past four.”

Anerley had been lying behind a camel staring with an interest which bordered upon fascination at the rocks opposite. Here was a little woolly puff of smoke, and there was another one, but never once had they caught a glimpse of the attackers. To him there was something weird and awesome in these unseen, persistent men who, minute by minute, were drawing closer to them. He had heard them cry out when the kettle was broken, and once, immediately afterwards, an enormously strong voice had roared something which had set Scott shrugging his shoulders.

“They’ve got to take us first,” said he, and Anerley thought his nerve might be better if he did not ask for a translation.

The firing had begun at a distance of some 100 yards, which put it out of the question for them, with their lighter weapons, to make any reply to it. Had their antagonists continued to keep that range the defenders must either have made a hopeless sally or tried to shelter themselves behind their zareba as best they might on the chance that the sound might bring up help. But, luckily for them, the African has never taken kindly to the rifle, and his primitive instinct to close with his enemy is always too strong for his sense of strategy. They were drawing in, therefore, and now, for the first time, Anerley caught sight of a face looking at them from over a rock. It was a huge, virile, strong-jawed head of a pure negro type, with silver trinkets gleaming in the ears. The man raised a great arm from behind the rock, and shook his Remington at them.

“Shall I fire?” asked Anerley.

“No, no; it is too far. Your shot would scatter all over the place.”

“It’s a picturesque ruffian,” said Scott. “Couldn’t you kodak him, Mortimer? There’s another!” A fine-featured brown Arab, with a black, pointed beard, was peeping from behind another boulder. He wore the green turban which proclaimed him hadji, and his face showed the keen, nervous exultation of the religious fanatic.

“They seem a piebald crowd,” said Scott.

“That last is one of the real fighting Baggara,” remarked Mortimer. “He’s a dangerous man.”

“He looks pretty vicious. There’s another negro!”

“Two more! Dingas, by the look of them. Just the same chaps we get our own black battalions from. As long as they get a fight they don’t mind who it’s for; but if the idiots had only sense enough to understand, they would know that the Arab is their hereditary enemy, and we their hereditary friends. Look at the silly juggins, gnashing his teeth at the very men who put down the slave trade!”

“Couldn’t you explain?”

“I’ll explain with this pistol when he comes a little nearer. Now sit tight, Anerley. They’re off!”