The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
round the flat roof stood a soldier, staring out across the desert, and most of them staring along their levelled rifles too; some of them straight at me. Why? There was no enemy about. Why were they not sleeping the sleep of tired victors, below on their cots in the caserne, while double sentries watched from the high look-out platform? Why no man up there, and yet a man at every embrasure that I could see from where I sat on my camel, a thousand metres distant?
And why did no man move; no man turn to call out to a sergeant that a French officer approached; no man walk to the door leading down from the roof, to inform the Commandant of the fort?
Anyhow, the little force had been extraordinarily lucky, or the shooting of the Arabs extraordinarily bad, that they should still be numerous enough to man the walls in that fashion--'all present and correct,' as you say in your army--and able to stand to arms thus, after two or three days of it, more or less.
As I lowered my glasses and urged my camel forward, I came to the conclusion that I was expected, and that the officer in charge was indulging in a little natural and excusable fantaisie, showing off--what you call 'putting on the dog,' eh?
He was going to let me find everything as the Arabs found it when they made their foolish attack--every man at his post and everything klim-bim. Yes, that must be it. . . . Ah, it was! Even as I watched, a couple of shots were fired from the wall. They had seen me. . . . The fellow, in his joy, was almost shooting at me, in fact!
And yet--nobody on the look-out platform! How I would prick that good fellow's little bubble of swank! And I smiled to myself as I rode under the trees of the oasis to approach the gates of the fort.
It was the last time I smiled for quite a little while.
Among the palm trees were little pools of dried and blackened blood where men had fallen, or wounded men had been laid, showing that, however intact the garrison of the fort might be, their assailants had paid toll to the good Lebel rifles of my friends.
And then I rode out from the shade of the oasis and up to the gate.
Here half a dozen or so kept watch, looking out over the wall above, as they leant in the embrasures of the parapet. The nearest was a huge fellow, with a great bushy grey moustache, from beneath which protruded a short wooden pipe. His képi was cocked rakishly over one eye, as he stared hard at me with the other, half closed and leering, while he kept his rifle pointed straight at my head.
I was glad to feel certain that he at least was no Arab, but a tough old legionary, a typical vieille moustache, and rough soldier of fortune. But I thought his joke a poor one and over-personal, as I looked up into the muzzle of his unwavering rifle. . . .
'Congratulations, my children,' I cried. 'France and I are proud to salute you,' and raised my képi in homage to their courage and their victory.
Not one of them saluted. Not one of them answered. Not one of them stirred. Neither a finger nor an eyelid moved. I was annoyed. If this was 'making fantaisie' as they call it in the Legion, it was making it at the wrong moment and in the wrong manner.
'Have you of the Foreign Legion no manners?' I shouted. 'Go, one of you, at once, and call your officer.' Not a finger nor an eyelid moved.
I then addressed myself particularly to old Grey-Moustache. 'You,' I said, pointing up straight at his face, 'go at once and tell your Commandant that Major de Beaujolais of the Spahis has arrived from Tokotu with a relieving force--and take that pipe out of your face and step smartly, do you hear?'
And then, my friend, I grew a little uncomfortable, though the impossible truth did not dawn upon me. Why did the fellow remain like a graven image, silent, motionless, remote--like an Egyptian god on a temple wall, looking with stony and unseeing eye into my puny human face?
Why were they all like stone statues? Why was the fort so utterly and horribly silent? Why did nothing move, there in the fierce sunlight of the dawn? Why this tomb-like, charnel-house, inhuman silence and immobility?
Where were the usual sounds and stir of an occupied post? Why had no sentry seen me from afar and cried the news aloud? Why had there been no clang and clatter at the gate? Why had the gate not been opened? Why no voice, no footstep in all the place? Why did these men ignore me as though I were a beetle on the sand? Where was their officer? . . .
Was this a nightmare in which I seemed for ever doomed to ride voiceless and invisible, round endless walls, trying to attract the attention of those who could never be aware of me?
When, as in a dream, I rode right round the place, and beheld more and more of those motionless silent forms, with their fixed, unwinking eyes, I clearly saw that one of them, whose képi had fallen from his head, had a hole in the centre of his forehead and was dead--although at his post, with chest and elbows leaning on the parapet, and looking as though about to fire his rifle!
I am rather near-sighted, as you know, but then the truth dawned upon me--they were all dead!
'Why were they not sleeping the sleep of tired victors?' I had asked myself a few minutes before. They were. . . .
Yes, all of them. Mort sur le champ d'honneur! . . .
My friend, I rode back to where Grey-Moustache kept his last watch, and, baring my head, I made my apologies to him, and the tears came into my eyes. Yes, and I, Henri de Beaujolais of the Spahis, admit it without shame.
I said, 'Forgive me, my friend.' What would you, an Englishman, have said?"
"What about a spot of tea?" quoth Mr. George Lawrence, reaching beneath the seat for his tiffin-basket.
§4.
After a dusty meal, impatiently swallowed by Major de Beaujolais, that gentleman resumed his story, with serious earnestness and some gesticulation, while, on the opposite side of the carriage, George Lawrence lay upon his back, his clasped hands beneath his head, idly watching the smoke that curled up from his cheroot. But he was paying closer attention to the Frenchman's tale.
"But, of course, it soon occurred to me," continued that gentleman, "that someone must be alive. . . . Shots had been fired to welcome me. . . . Those corpses had not of themselves taken up those incredibly life-like attitudes. Whoever had propped them up and arranged them and their rifles in position, must be alive.
For, naturally, not all had been struck by Arab bullets and remained standing in the embrasures. Nine times out of ten, as you know, a man staggers back and falls, when shot standing.
Besides, what about the wounded? There is always a far bigger percentage of wounded than of killed in any engagement. Yes, there must be survivors, possibly all more or less wounded, below in the caserne.
But surely one of them might have kept a look-out. Probably the Commandant and all the non-commissioned officers were killed.
Even then, though, one would have expected the senior man--even if the survivors were all soldats deuxième classe--to have taken that much ordinary military precaution! . . .
Well, I would soon solve the problem, for my troop was approaching, my trumpeter with them. I was glad to note that my Sergeant-Major had evidently had a similar idea to mine, for, on coming in sight of the fort, he had opened out and skirmished up in extended order--in spite of the bravely-flying Flag.
When my men arrived, I had the 'rouse,' the 'alarm,' the Regimental Call, sounded by the trumpeter--fully expecting, after each blast, that the gates would open, or at least that someone would come running up from below on to the roof.
Not a sound nor a movement! . . . Again and again; call after call. . . . Not a sound nor a movement!
'Perhaps the last one or two are badly wounded,' thought I. 'There may not be a man able to crawl from his bed. The fellow who propped those corpses up may have been shot in the act, and be lying up there, or on his cot,' and I bade the trumpeter cease. Sending for the Chef, as we call the Sergeant-Major, I ordered him to knot camel-cords, sashes, girths, reins, anything, make a