The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
after setting fire to one of Madame la Républiques's perfectly good forts. . . . I drew out what had been a handkerchief, and from the safe obscurity of a sand-valley, waved it. I then laid my rifle down and crawled towards him. I noticed that he was wearing a trumpet, slung behind him.
As I came closer to the man, I was conscious of that strange contraction of the scalp-muscles which has given rise to the expression "his hair stood on end with fright."
I was not frightened and my hair did not stand on end, but I grew cold with a kind of horrified wonder as I saw what I took to be the ghost or astral form of my brother there before me, looking perfectly normal, alive, and natural.
It was my brother--my brother Digby--Michael's twin. . . .
"Hullo, John," said Digby, as I stared open-mouthed and incredulous, "I thought you'd be knocking about somewhere round here. Let's get off to a healthier spot, shall us?"
For all his casual manner and debonair bearing, he looked white and drawn, sick to death, his hands shaking, his face a ghastly mask of pain.
"Wounded?" I asked, seeing the state he was in.
"Er--not physically. . . . I have just been giving Michael a 'Viking's Funeral,'" he replied, biting his lip.
Poor, poor Digby! He loved Michael as much as I did (he could not love him more), and he was further bound to him by those strange ties that unite twins--psychic spiritual bonds, that make them more like one soul in two bodies than separate individuals. Poor, poor Digby!
I put my arm across his shoulders as we lay on the sand between two hillocks.
"Poor old John!" he said at length, mastering his grief. "It was you who laid him out, of course. You, who saw him die. . . . Poor Johnny boy! . . ."
"He died trying to save my life," I said. "He died quite happily and in no pain. . . . He left a job for us to do. . . . I've got a letter for you. Here it is. . . . Let's get well off to the flank of that vedette and lie low till there's a chance to pinch a camel and clear out . . ." and I led the way in a direction to bring us clear of the vedettes and nearer to the oasis.
A couple of minutes after our meeting, we were snugly ensconced behind the crest of a sand-hill, overlooking the parade of our comrades, the oasis, and the burning fort. A higher hillock behind us, and to our right, screened us from the nearest vedette.
"And," said Digby, in a voice that trembled slightly, "they're not going to spoil Michael's funeral. Nor are they going to secure any evidence of your neat job on the foul Lejaune. . . . They're going to be attacked by Arabs . . ." he raised his rifle.
"Don't shoot anybody, Dig," I said. It seemed to me there had been enough bloodshed, and if these people were now technically our enemies and might soon be our executioners, they were still our comrades, and innocent of offence.
"Not going to--unless it's myself," replied Digby. "Come on, play Arabs with me . . ." and he fired his rifle, aiming high.
I followed his example, shooting above the head of the officer as I had done once before that day.
Again and again we fired, vedettes to left and right of us joining in, and showing their zeal and watchfulness by firing briskly at nothing at all--unless it was at each other.
It was a sight worth seeing, the retreat of that company of legionaries. At a cool order from the officer, they faced about, opened out, doubled to the oasis, and went to ground, turning to the enemy and taking cover so that, within a couple of minutes of our first shots, there was nothing to be seen but a dark and menacing oasis, to approach which was death. . . .
"Good work!" said Digby. "And they can jolly well stop there until the fort is burnt out. . . . We'll go in and get camels, as vedettes whose camels have been shot by these attacking Arabs, later on. . . . If we swagger up to the sentry on the camels, and pitch a bold yarn, it ought to be all right. . . ."
"Yes--better if one of us goes," said I. "Then, if he doesn't return, the other can clear off on foot, or try some other dodge."
"That's it," agreed Digby. "I'll have first go."
"Now tell me all that happened," he added, "and then I'll bring you up to date."
I did so, giving him a full account of all our doings, from the time he had left us to go to the mounted company.
"Now tell me a few things, Dig," I said, when I had finished, and he knew as much as I did.
He then told me of how his escouade had suddenly been ordered from Tanout-Azzal to Tokotu. Here they had found, of all people on this earth, the Spahi officer who had once visited Brandon Abbas, now Major de Beaujolais, seconded from his regiment for duty with mounted units in the Territoire Militaire of the Soudan, where the mobile Touraegs were presenting a difficult problem to the peaceful penetrators towards Timbuktu and Lake Tchad.
The Major had not recognised Digby, of course, nor Digby him, until he heard his name and that he was a Spahi.
(And it was at him that I had been shooting that day, or rather it was he at whom I had not been shooting. It was this very friend of boyhood's days whom I had been trying to warn against what I thought was an ambush! . . . Time's whirligig! . . .)
At Tokotu, news had been received that Zinderneuf was besieged by a huge force of Touaregs, and de Beaujolais had set off at once.
The rest I knew until the moment when I had seen Digby, who was de Beaujolais' trumpeter, climb into the fort. . . .
"Well--you know what I saw as I got on to the roof," said Digby, "and you can imagine (can you, I wonder?) what I felt when I saw Beau lying there. . . . I dashed down below and rushed round to see if you were among the wounded, and then realised that there were no wounded, and that the entire garrison was on that awful roof. . . . That meant that you had cleared out, and that it was your bayonet ornamenting Lejaune's chest, and that it was you who had disposed Michael's body and closed his eyes. Someone must have done it, and it wasn't one of those dead men. . . . Who else but you would have treated Michael's body differently from the others? As I have told you, I was mighty anxious, coming along, as to how you and Michael were getting on, and whether we should be in time, and I had been itching to get up on to the roof while de Beaujolais was being dramatic with Rastignac. . . . You can guess how anxious I was now. . . . What with Michael's death and your disappearance. . . .
"I could almost see you killing Lejaune, and felt certain it was because he had killed Michael and tried to kill you for that cursed 'diamond,' . . . I tell you I went dotty. . . .
"'Anyhow--he shall have a "Viking's Funeral,"' I swore, and I believe I yelled the words at the top of my voice, 'and then I must find John.' . . . You know, it was always Beau's constant worry that harm would come to you. It was the regret of his life, that he was responsible for your bolting from home. . . . You young ass. . . .
"Anyhow, my one idea was to give him a proper funeral and then to follow you up. I guessed that you had stuck there, the sole survivor, until you saw de Beaujolais, and then slipped over the wall. . . .
"Then I heard someone scrambling and scraping at the wall, climbing up, and I crept off and rushed down below, with the idea of hiding till I got a chance to set fire to the beastly place, if I could do nothing better for Beau. . . . I saw the door of the punishment-cell standing open, and I slipped in there and hid behind the door. There was just room for me, and I should never be seen until someone came in and closed the door of the cell--which wasn't likely to happen for a long while. . . .
"Soon I heard de Beaujolais bawling out for me, and by the sound of his voice he wasn't much happier than I was. . . . The sight upstairs was enough to shake anybody's nerve, let alone the puzzle of it all. . . . By and by I heard him and the Sergeant-Major talking and hunting for me. They actually looked into the cell once, but it was obviously empty--besides being a most unlikely place for a soldier to shut himself in voluntarily! . . . I gathered that old Dufour was even less happy than de Beaujolais, who certainly wasn't enjoying himself. . . . Presently they went away, and the place became as silent