The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
and with one goat-skin containing about a pint of water.
This we decided not to drink until we must literally drink or die, though it seemed that we must surely do that in any case.
For a day we struggled on, incredibly, without water, and at the end of the day wondered whether we were a day's march further from the caravan-road on which were oases, wells, water-holes, and villages.
Once we found it (if ever), we would risk the French patrols until we could again get camels. On the caravan-route, death was probable, here in the desert, on foot, it was certain.
Night found us unable to speak, our lips black, and cracked in great fissures, our tongues swollen horribly, our throats closed, and our mouths dry. (It is an incredibly horrible thing to have one's mouth literally and really dry, like hard leather.)
I pointed at the precious water-skin and raised my eyebrows interrogatively.
Hank shook his head and pointed at the setting sun and then at the zenith. We must drink to-morrow when we should, if possible, be in worse case than now.
We reeled on through the night, for our lives depended on reaching the "road."
Towards morning, I could go no further and sank down without meaning to do so. I tried to rise and failed. Seeing that I could do no more, the other two lay down beside me, and we fell asleep.
The sun woke me to see Buddy, with a face like death, staring at a scrap of paper torn from a pocket-book.
He passed it to me. On it was scrawled:
"Pards, Drink up the water slow and push on quick. Good old Buddy, we bin good pards. Hank."
Hank was gone. . . .
Buddy untied the neck of the goat-skin and filled his mouth with water. He held the water in his mouth for a minute and then swallowed it slowly.
"Take a mouthful like that and then swaller," he croaked hoarsely.
"We gotta do what Hank ses," he added, as I shook my head. I could not drink the water.
"We gotta hike," wheezed Buddy. "We don' wanta make what he done all for nix. All no good, like. He won't come back an' drink it. . . . Yew ain't goin' to waste his life, pard? . . . He done it fer you. . . ."
I filled my mouth and swallowed--but I could not swallow the lump in my throat. . . .
We staggered on through that day and the next, moistening our mouths at intervals, and just before sunset, on the second day, saw a mirage of palm trees, a village, a little white mosque, and--the mirage was real.
We stayed at this village for months, scouring the desert for Hank, working as cultivators, water-carriers, watchmen, camelmen, and at any other job that offered, and we were never both asleep at the same time.
When French patrols visited the place, we hid, or fled into the desert, with the entire sympathy of the villagers. We could have joined more than one south-bound caravan, but I would not urge Buddy to leave the place.
He had such faith in the indestructibility of Hank, that he hoped against hope, until hope deferred made his heart sick.
At first it was:
"He'll come mushin' in here ter-morrer, a-throwin' his feet like the Big Buck Hobo, rollin' his tail like a high-fed hoss, an' grinnin' fit ter bust. . . ."
Then it was:
"Nobody couldn't kill Hank. . . . He's what you call ondestructible. . . . Why, back in Colorado, he shore chased a man over the Panamint Mountains an' right across Death Valley once, an' inter the Funeral Mountains t'other side. A hoss-rustler, he was, and when ole Hank got him, he was stone dead with heat an' thirst, an' Hank turned right round an' hiked back and come out alive! . . ."
And at last, when a caravan came from the north actually going south to Zinder (the military headquarters of the Territoire Militaire) and comparative civilisation, he proposed that we should join it as camelmen and guards.
"You can't stop here fer keeps, pard," he said. "I reckon I bin selfish. But I couldn't leave ole Hank while there was a chance. . . ."
But for Michael's letter (and my longing to see Isobel), I would have urged Buddy to stay, for that was what he really wanted to do.
Nothing could destroy his faith in his friend's superiority to the desert and to death. We joined the caravan as fighting-men, one dumb, and later (as we neared Zinder) we left it though we had little fear of getting into trouble there. Still, it was just possible that some non-com. of the big garrison there might know and recognise us, and possible that a well-equipped desert-party of goumiers might have come along the caravan-road from Zinderneuf.
Our adventures between Zinder and the British border at Barbera, where we first saw Haussas in the uniform of the West African Field Force, were numerous, and our hardships great; but Fate seemed to have done its worst--and now that I had lost Digby, and Buddy had lost Hank, and neither of us cared very much what happened, our luck changed and all went fairly well.
And one day we rode, on miserable donkeys, into the great city of Kano, and I revealed myself to an astounded Englishman as a compatriot.
He was kindness itself, and put me in communication with a friend, or rather a friend of Aunt Patricia's, a Mr. Lawrence of the Nigerian Civil Service. This gentleman sent me money and an invitation to come and stay with him at his headquarters and to bring Buddy with me.
And when I told Buddy that on the morrow he was actually going to ride in a train once more--I found that he was not.
He had only come to Kano to see me safe, and, having done so, he was going straight back to look for Hank!
Nothing would shake his determination, and it was waste of words to try. Nor was it pleasant to strive to persuade him that his friend was dead.
"Would you go if it was yore brother that was lost, pard?" he said.
"Nope. . . . Hank give his life fer us. . . ."
All I could do was to see him fitted out with everything procurable in Kano--a fine camel, a spare one for food, water, ammunition, and a small tent, and a Haussa ex-soldier as servant and guide, recommended by the Kano Englishman, an official named Mordaunt.
The latter made it clear to the Haussa that he was to go north with this American "explorer," obey him in all things, receive half his pay before starting, and the other half, with a bonus depending in value upon his merit, when he returned to Kano with his master, or honourably discharged.
Mordaunt was good enough to accept my word that if he would be my banker in this matter, I would adjust things as soon as I saw Mr. Lawrence, who was an old friend of his.
I hated parting with the staunch, brave, great-hearted little Buddy, and I felt that he would never return to Kano unless it was with Hank, and I had no hope whatever of his doing that. . . .
I wondered if I should ever have had the cold iron courage to go voluntarily back into that Hell, after escaping it by a miracle, on such a ghost of a chance of finding a friend. . . .
§5.
I took the train at Kano to some place of which I have forgotten the name, and Lawrence met me on the platform. I remembered his face as soon as I saw it, as that of the quiet, rather dour and repellent man who had been to Brandon Abbas two or three times when we were there.
He came nearer to showing excitement, while he listened to my story, than I thought was his wont. When I had finished he said:
"I should like to know when fiction was much stranger than this piece of truth! . . . And you still do not know the rights of this 'Blue Water' mystery?"
"No," I said. "I only know that my brother Michael never stole anything in his life."
"Quite so," he replied. "Of course. . . . And now I have something to tell you. Your Major de Beaujolais was sent down to Zinder and from there he went