The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
can't ride away from Touareg," I answered. "It's hopeless. We've got to fight, if they attack. They may not do so, having been badly stung already. But the Targui is a vengeful beast. It isn't as though they were ordinary Bedouin. . . ."
The light grew stronger, and we drew near to the others. I told Djikki to drop back and to fire directly he saw anything of the robbers--thus warning us, and standing them off while we made what preparations we could.
I suddenly felt extremely giddy, sick, and faint. My white burnous made a ghastly show. I was wet through, from my waist to my left foot, with blood. I must have lost a frightful lot . . . artery. . . .
Help! . . .
* * *
The next thing that I knew was that I was lying with my head on Maudie's lap, while Mary Vanbrugh, white of face but deft of hand, bandaged my arm and strapped it across my chest. She had evidently torn up some linen garment for this purpose. Mary's eyes were fixed on her work, and Maudie's on the horizon. The men were crouched each behind his kneeling camel.
"Dear Major Ivan," murmured Mary as she worked.
I shut my eyes again, quickly and without shame. It was heavenly to rest thus for a few minutes.
"Oh, is he dead, Miss?" quavered poor Maudie.
"We shall all be dead in a few minutes, I expect, child," replied Mary. "Have you a safety-pin? . . . Dead as cold mutton. . . . Sheikhs, my dear! . . . Shall I shoot you at the last, Maudie, or would you rather do it yourself?"
"Well--if you wouldn't mind, Miss? Thank you very much, if it's not troubling you."
Silence.
"Dear Major Ivan," came a sweet whisper. "Oh, I have been a beast to him, Maudie. . . . Yes, I'll shoot you with pleasure, child. . . . How could I be such a wretch as to treat him like that. . . . He is the bravest, nicest, sternest . . ."
I felt a cad, and opened my eyes--almost into those of Mary, whose lips were just . . . were they . . . were they? . . .
"Yes, Miss," said Maudie, her eyes and thoughts afar off. "He is a beautiful gentleman. . . ."
"Hallo! the patient has woken up!" cried Mary, drawing back quickly. "Had a nice nap, Major? How do you feel? . . . Here, have a look into the cup that cheers and inebriates"; and she lifted a mug, containing cognac and water, to my lips.
I drank the lot and felt better.
"My heart come into my mouth it did, sir, when I saw you fall head-first off that camel. You fair splashed blood, sir," said Maudie. "Clean into me mouth me heart come, sir."
"Hope you swallowed the little thing again, Maud. Such a sweet garden of romance as it is! . . . 'Come into the maud, Garden!' for a change. . . . That's the way, Major. . . . Drinks it up like milk and looks round for more. Got a nice clean flesh wound and no bones touched, the clever man. . . ."
I sat up.
"Get those camels further apart, Dufour," I shouted.
"Absolute focal point to draw concentrated fire bunched like that . . ."
Nobody must think that I was down and out, and that the reins were slipping from a sick man's grasp.
The men were eating dates as they watched, and Mary had opened a tin of biscuits and one of sardines.
"Hark at the Major saying his piece," a voice murmured from beneath a flowing kafiyeh beside me. "Isn't he fierce this morning!"
I got to my feet and pulled myself together. . . . Splendid. . . . Either the brandy, or the idea of a kiss I foolishly fancied that I had nearly received, had gone to my head. I ate ravenously for the next ten minutes, and drank cold tea from a water-bottle.
"There's many a slip between the kiss and the lip," I murmured anon, in a voice to match the one that had last spoken.
I was unwise.
"Wrong again, Major Ivan Petruski Skivah! I was just going to blow a smut off your grubby little nose," was the prompt reply, and I seemed to hear thereafter a crooning of:
"But among the most reckless of name and of fame Was Ivan Petruski Skivah . . . . . . . . . . . . and perform on the Spanish guitar In fact, quite the cream of 'Intelligence' team Was Ivan Petruski Skivah. . . ."
as Miss Vanbrugh cleaned her hands with sand and then re-packed iodine and boric lint in the little medicine-chest.
I managed to get on to my camel, and soon began to feel a great deal better, perhaps helped by my ferocious anger at myself for collapsing. Still, blood is blood, and one misses it when too much is gone.
"Ride on with Achmet again," I called to Miss Vanbrugh, and bade the rest mount. "We'll keep on now, just as long as we can," I said to Dufour, and ordered Djikki to hang as far behind us as was safe. In a matter of that sort, Djikki's judgment was as good as anybody's. . . .
Dufour then told me a piece of news.
A few miles to the south-east of us was, according to Suleiman, a shott, a salt-lake or marsh that extended to the base of a chain of mountains. The strip of country between the two was very narrow.
We could camp there.
If the Touareg attacked us, they could only do so on a narrow front, and could not possibly surround us. To go north round the lake, or south round the mountains, would be several days' journey.
"That will be the place for us, sir," concluded Dufour.
"Yes," I agreed, "if the Touareg are not there before us."
Chapter X.
My Abandoned Children
That would have been one of the worst days of my life, and that is saying a good deal, had it not been for a certain exaltation and joy that bubbled up in my heart as I thought of the look in Miss Vanbrugh's eyes when I had opened mine. . . .
What made it so terrible was not merely the maddening ache in my arm that seemed to throb in unison with the movement of my camel, but the thought of what I must do if this pass was what I pictured it to be, and if the Touareg attacked us in strength.
It would be a very miserable and heart-breaking duty--to ride on and leave my men to hold that pass--that I might escape and fulfil my mission. How could I leave Dufour to die that I might live? How could I desert Achmet and Djikki, my servants and my friends? . . .
However--it is useless to attempt to serve one's country in the Secret Service, if one's private feelings, desires, loves, sorrows, likes and dislikes are to be allowed to come between one and one's country's good. . . . Poor de Lannec! How weak and unworthy he had been. . . .
There was one grain of comfort--nothing would be gained by my staying and dying with my followers. . . . It would profit them nothing at all. . . . They would die just the same. . . .
If the Touareg could, by dint of numbers, overcome four, they could overcome five. I could not save them by staying with them. . . .
But oh, the misery, the agony, of ordering them to hold that pass while I rode to safety!
How could I give the order: "Die, but do not retire--until I have had time to get well away"?
And the girls? Would they be a hindrance to me on two of the fleetest camels. . . . And perhaps any of my little band who did not understand my desertion of them would think they were fighting to save the women, whom I was taking to safety--if I decided to take them.
But it would be ten times worse than leaving my comrades in Zaguig. . . .
How could I