"Is Suakim an island?" he asked.

"Not now," replied MacBean. "When I was last here it was, but since that Gordon has had a causeway made to the mainland. There, you can see it now," he added, as the vessel steamed through a gap in the outer coral reef.

"I wonder whether these passages in the reef were made by cutting the coral out to build the town," said another.

"No," replied the doctor. "Their origin is rather curious. Sometimes, in the wet season, torrents rush down from the mountains to the sea, and the fresh water kills the polypus which makes the coral, and so stops the formation of it just there, and makes an opening. This theory is confirmed by the fact that all such passages through the reefs are immediately opposite valleys."

"The town looks like a large fortification; I suppose the dwelling- houses are behind the walls."

"No, those are the houses; and what look from here like loopholes are the windows. The place is worth looking over, though you won't have much time for that, I expect, nor yet for boating amongst the curious coral caves, or looking at the queer creatures which serve for fish and haunt them, until you have chawed up the Hadendowas and got Osman Digna in a cage."

"Not then, I hope," said one of the seniors of the group. "I hope they will send us across to Berber, when Osman's forces are swept from the path."

"I doubt if they will," replied the doctor, shaking his head. "It will be frightfully hot in a couple of months."

"It is the only way to save Gordon."

"I fear you are right, but I hope not. But here is a boat coming off to us."

It was a man-of-war's boat dashing along with the smart, lively stroke which can never be mistaken. It was alongside presently, and almost the moment it touched, the naval officer they had seen in the stern sheets stood on the quarter-deck; a harlequin could not have done it more quickly.

"It is a mistake your coming in here, sir," he said to the commanding officer; "you are to go to Trinkitat."

So the chance of closely investigating a coral town, and seeing how closely or otherwise it resembled a similar sort of colony in an extravaganza, was lost for the present for the First Battalion of the Blankshire, who growled. And yet, oh fortunate ones! If they but knew it, they gained two more comfortable meals, and one comfortable night's lodging, by having to go on.

For they did not anchor in Trinkitat harbour till it was too late to land that night. The delay caused a last rise to be taken out of poor Green, or rather a final allusion to a long-standing one. When the battalion got its route for the Soudan, the lad was as keen to see active service as any one of them, and it was a severe shock to him when one of the most mischievous of his brother officers pretended to discover that one of his legs was crooked, which would incapacitate him, he feared, from marching across the desert.

"You would knock up in an hour's march, and have to be carried, you know," said the tormentor; "it would never do."

"I am sure my legs seem to me all right," urged poor Green.

"Well, of course, I may be quite in error," candidly admitted the other. "We will ask a doctor."

So Doctor MacBean was called in, and he made an examination of the accused limb.

"Dear, dear!" he said, "however were you passed for the army? The scarsal bone of the fons ilium is all out of drawing."

"But you won't tell, doctor?" pleaded poor Green; "it does not inconvenience me in the least, I assure you."

"Not now, perhaps," said the doctor, nodding his head; "but after a long march in sand, it might be serious. I am very sorry, but I must do my duty."

But, being much entreated, the doctor was persuaded to try what an invention of his own, which he spoke diffidently of, would do. So Green's leg was done up in splints for twenty-four hours, and then plaistered up. And after a bit the doctor saw so much improvement that he agreed to say nothing about it, and so Green sailed with the rest.

"How is your fons ilium, Green?" he was asked that evening in the saloon.

"Hush!" he whispered, anxiously; "the colonel will hear you! I am all right. I'll walk you ten miles through the deepest sand we meet with for a sovereign."

"Thank you; no amount of sovereigns would tempt me to accept the responsibility of putting your scarsal bone to so severe a test. But I am glad it is so much stronger; very glad. I would not have the regiment miss the aid of your stalwart arm on any consideration. Never shall I forget the way you delivered that Number 3 cut which caught Mercer such a hot one the other day, when you were playing singlestick on the deck. I say, by-the-by, have you had your sword sharpened?"

"Yes!" replied Green, with enthusiasm. "It has a good butcher's-knife edge upon it; so the corporal said, who ground it for me. It is quite as sharp as my pocket-knife."

"I am not quite so soft as they take me for," he added, confidentially, to Strachan presently.

"Of course you are not, my dear fellow," said Tom. "I doubt if it would be possible."

"Now that MacBean, the doctor, you know: did you hear what he said about the fresh water coming down from the hills in the rainy season, and making gaps in the coral because fresh water killed the insects that make the coral?"

"Yes, I heard him," said Strachan, wondering what fault Green could find with what seemed to him a very lucid explanation.

"As if I was going to swallow that!" said the other. "The rainy season, indeed! Why, every one knows that rain never falls in Egypt."

"But, my dear fellow, this isn't Egypt for one thing, and it rains sometimes everywhere, I expect," said Tom, who was somewhat tired of imposing on the innocence of Green, who was a very willing and good- tempered lad. "Do you know you remind me of a very old story of a sailor-lad who returned home to his grandmother after a cruise in these very waters. It may be familiar to you."

"I don't remember it," said Green.

"Well, it is really so apt that I will tell it."

"'What did you see that was curious, Jack?' asked the old woman. 'Well, granny, there were flying fish; they came right out of the water and flew on the deck, and we picked them up on it.' The old woman laughed and shook her head. 'What else, Jack?' 'Why, I wish you could see the sea at night in them parts, granny; where the ship disturbs the water it all sparkles, and you can see her track a long way, like a regular road of fire.' 'Ha, ha! Go it, Jack. What else?' Jack's budget of fact was exhausted for the moment, so he had to take refuge in fiction. 'Well, when we were in the Red Sea, you know, we hauled up the anchor, and we found a carriage-wheel on one of the flukes. A queer old wheel it was. And the chaplain, he looked at it and found the maker's name, which was that of Pharaoh's coach-builder. So he said there was no doubt it belonged to his army, when he followed the Israelites after they had gone out of Egypt.' 'Ah, now you are telling me what is worth listening to!' cried the old woman. 'We know that Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, and that they had a many chariots. It is like enough you should fish one of the wheels up. But to try to stuff your poor old granny that fish can fly, and water take fire! For shame, you limb!'"

Green was a bit thoughtful, and puzzled over the application of this fable; but Strachan having to hurry off on duty, he could not question him further.

Every one was on deck by daybreak next morning, and the bustle of the day commenced. The Alligator was rather a late arrival, and the shore was already white with tents, large and small, circular and square, the camp being protected by an earthwork and a trench, which came down to the sea on each side, entirely enclosing it on that of the land, while on the other it was protected by the harbour and its gunboats.

But there was not much time for gaping; launches and boats of various kinds were alongside presently, and the work of disembarkation commenced. It did not take long, for a number of little piers had been made, rude enough, but answering their purpose, and several boats could land their passengers at them at once. Then there was an officer ready to show them where to get their tents, and it was not long before the First Blankshire had added several streets to the canvas town.

They had hardly done that, however, and were still telling off men for the various regimental duties, when they were called upon to find a large fatigue party for the public service. And now, if any men felt the cramping effects of life in a small compass on board ship, they had plenty of opportunity for stretching their limbs and getting their muscles into full play.

The sailors, for the most part, brought the cargoes ashore, and the way they worked was marvellous. They bundled bales and boxes into the boats as if the ship were on fire and they had only a few minutes to save them in; they rowed them to the strand as if they were racing in a regatta, and they got them out on the jetties before dockyard hands at home would have quite made up their minds what bale they should begin with.

And they laughed and chaffed, and seemed to think it the best fun out. Such energy was infectious, and "Tommy Atkins," without coat or braces, and with his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows, tried to emulate "Jack." Some of the goods they had to pile up on the shore; some to carry to the commissariat stores; and some, again, to the ordnance department. If free perspiration was the best thing for health and vigour, they were going the right way to work to obtain those blessings.

There was a lad in Fitzgerald's company, that in which Strachan was lieutenant, upon whom these new duties fell very hard. His name was James Gubbins, and he enlisted because he found it hard to obtain any other employment. And no wonder, for never was there such an awkward mortal. He broke the hearts of corporals and sergeants, and the officers of his company would fain have got rid of him. But he was perfectly able-bodied, and the surgeon was bound to pass him. Neither would the colonel help them; the man was well conducted, healthy, and tried his best. "He would make a good soldier in time," he said. Perhaps so, but the process was tedious. One lad, who joined as a recruit a month after Gubbins, learned his drill, went to his duty, was made a lance-corporal, and had the drilling of the squad in which Gubbins was still toiling at the rudiments.

He got perfect in the manual exercise, and was dismissed from recruit drill at last however, and even learned to shoot, after he had once taken in the part of the back-sight of his rifle which was to be aligned with the fore-sight, haziness about which nearly caused several bad accidents, as his bullets went wandering dangerously near the butts to the right and left of that where he was supposed to be firing.

By the time he passed muster he was indeed a valuable soldier, if the value of a thing depends upon the trouble taken to manufacture it. And now poor Gubbins had more to learn! It may seem very easy to turn a crank, to pump, to shoulder a box, to help carry a bale, or to push at a capstan bar, and this certainly is not skilled labour. Yet there is a way of doing each of these things in a painful, laborious, knuckle- cutting, shoulder-bruising, toe-smashing manner, and a comparatively easy and comfortable one.

And James Gubbins invariably did the worst for himself possible. I do wish that a special artist had seen him trying to help sling a mule on one occasion, and endeavouring to take a similar animal to the place appointed on shore for it on another. Words can do no justice to those scenes.

Another adventure, however, I will try to describe. A naval officer engaged in transport came up to Tom Strachan, who was in charge of half his company on fatigue duty, and said—

"Look here, do you see that steamer with a green funnel? Well, there are stores on board, for your regiment mostly. A whole lot of shells have to be landed this afternoon, and all my men are at work at that. I wish you would take that lighter, and let your fellows go off to the steamer and unload it. We should bring you the stores, as a rule, for you to carry up from the jetty, only we are short-handed."

"All right," said Tom.

The lighter was propelled by large oars, or sweeps, and James Gubbins found there was yet another trial for him in this weary world—that of endeavouring to row with one of these things. But he was so clumsy, and impeded the others to such an extent, that they pushed him on one side and told him to keep quiet.

When they got alongside, a rope was thrown up and caught by a sailor on deck, and Strachan went up a rope ladder to see exactly what had to be done. The stores were as yet in the hold, and the first job would be to hoist them out of it; so the lighter would not be wanted alongside for some time. The sailors let it drop astern, and then made it fast.

"Now then, men, you are wanted on deck; look alive!" cried Strachan.

The sergeant in the lighter looked puzzled how to get on board for a moment; but seeing a grin on a sailor's face, and at the same time observing a rope hanging from the taffrail close to him, he seized, pulled at it, and finding it firm at the top end, swarmed up it presently. It was not far to go, or a difficult operation, so the others followed.

Then they manned the crane, by which a chain with a big hook to it was lowered into the hold, as if to fish for something. And a bale having been caught, it was wound up, slewed round, and deposited on the deck.

When this had been going on a little time Strachan called out—

"Where's Gubbins?"

"Gubbins, sir," said the sergeant; "is he not here? No, he is not. Where can he have got to? Gubbins!"

He went aft and looked into the lighter; there was no one there, and he was turning away again, when he heard a voice in tremulous accents crying—

"Help! Help! Do pull me up, some one, or send a boat. He will have me—I know he will! He will jump presently; and if he doesn't, I can't hold on much longer. Help! Oh, lor! Help!"

There was James Gubbins clinging to the rope by which the others had come on board. He had waited till the last, and then attempted to follow. There were two knots in the rope, one near the bottom, the other some five feet higher, and by grasping it above the top one with his hands, and above the lower one with his ankles, he managed not to fall into the water. For the lighter had floated clear of him. As for swarming up the rope without the aid of knots, he might as well have tried to dance on the tight rope.

Now to fall in the water would of itself have been a serious thing to poor Gubbins, who, of course, could not swim; but to add to his terror there was a shark, plainly visible, his back fin indeed now and then rising out of the water, swimming round and round, opening his mouth, but by no means shutting his eyes, to see what luck would send him. And good rations and regular meals, with something a day to spend in beer, had agreed with James, who had not been accustomed before enlisting to eat meat every day. He was plump, and enough to make any shark's mouth water.

The sergeant called for assistance, and Gubbins was hauled up. He got a good many bumps against the side before he was safely landed on the deck, but he stuck to his rope like a limpet, and came bundling on board at last.

And then, when he felt himself out of the reach of those cruel jaws which had threatened him for a time, which seemed to him long enough, he nearly fainted.

After this experience, if James Gubbins ever learned to swim, it would have to be after his return to England, for nothing could persuade him to go into the waters of the Red Sea. And so he missed the principal pleasure which hard-worked "Tommy Atkins" enjoyed at that period. For when the work of the day was over, bathing parade was the great feature of the evening, and the margin of the strand was crowded with soldiers, swimming, wading, diving, splashing, playing every imaginable game in the water, for, however tired they might be, the refreshing plunge gave them fresh life and vigour.

And, by-the-by, why is the British soldier called "Tommy Atkins?" I believe that there are plenty of people who use the term and don't know. The nickname arose simply from the fact that every company has a ledger, in which each man's accounts are kept. So much pay and allowance on the credit side, so much for deductions on the debit, with the balance. The officer commanding the company signs to the one, the soldier himself to the other. On the first page of this book there is a form filled in, for the guidance of any new pay sergeant who may have to make out the accounts, and in this the fancy name of the supposed soldier is printed in the place where he has to sign, and this fancy name is "Thomas Atkins." But upon the point of who was the first person to generalise the name, and how it came about that his little joke was taken up and came into common use, history is dumb.

This is a digression, and I suppose, according to the ideas of some people, I ought to ask you to pardon it, for I observe that that is a common plan upon such occasions. But I do nothing of the kind. If I thought it needed pardon I should not have made it; and you ought to be glad to improve your mind with a little bit of useful information. But you knew it all before? Well, how could I tell that, I should like to know.

Whether the sharks were good old-fashioned Mohammedans, who would not bite on the side of the Mahdi, or whether the number of British soldiers in the water together, and the noise they made, overawed them, they did not attempt any supper in that direction, and the men enjoyed their bath with impunity.

The work went on day after day for some time, always at high pressure, and the men got into rare good training for marching or any other kind of work. And they had plenty of water to drink, for the steamers in the harbour were perpetually at work condensing the salt-water, which turns it, as you probably know, into fresh. Pipes then conveyed it on shore, where it was received in tanks and barrels. And the want of natural springs, and the consequent necessity of having recourse to an artificial supply, were not without advantage.

For the only water which can be got for troops when campaigning is very often polluted, and the men get dysentery from drinking it, whereas this was necessarily quite pure. And probably owing to this cause there was wonderfully little sickness. A terrified horse gave trouble in the landing him one day, and Tom Strachan, who was with the fatigue party which had to do it, lent his personal assistance, and with success, but he grew warm over the job.

As he was wiping the perspiration from his forehead Major Elmfoot rode up.

"Well, Strachan," he said, "how do you like this work? Do you want it over that you may begin fighting the Arabs?"

"Well, yes, sir," replied Tom. "A little of it goes a good way, and we have had more than a little. Still, we should not get on well without grub or cartridges, should we, sir?"

"No, my lad, you are right there; and I am glad to see you are a philosopher."

"Am I that, sir? Well, it is no use grumbling, but I am glad it is pretty nearly over."

"Pretty nearly over, you think it, do you?" said the major, drily. "Then the stores are to walk up to Fort Baker by themselves, I suppose."

"Have we got to—," began Tom, in dismay.

"Yes, we have," replied Major Elmfoot to his unfinished query; "and you are to knock off this job and start off on the other one at once."

It was a peculiarity of the major's to preface an order in that way— that is, to prepare you for something quite different, and then take you aback. If you were just going to dinner, and he had a duty for you which would cause you to defer that meal, he would begin by asking if you were hungry. He did not mean to be aggravating; it was only a way he had; but it was rather trying sometimes.

Fort Baker was about three miles from Trinkitat harbour; it was erected by Baker Pasha on the second of the month which was now drawing to a close, that is the February of 1884, when he was in command of the Egyptian army which was cut to pieces by the Arabs on the fifth. There is no fresh water nearer that part of the coast than the wells at El Teb, eight miles off; so every drop of the precious liquid for the use of the troops had to be first condensed at Trinkitat, and then carried in tanks of galvanised iron on camel or mule back to the fort. Three miles do not sound like a long distance, and on good ground are not very far. But the greater part of this track lay through marshes, and for a mile it was very bad indeed. But all were in good spirits, for it transpired that this was the last of that sort of work the two companies of the Blankshire employed in it were to have for the present. They were to take their arms and accoutrements with them and remain at Fort Baker till the rest of the battalion joined them. But it was hard work to get the unfortunate baggage animals along.

"I say, sergeant, what am I to do with this campbel now?" asked a soldier, alluding not to a clansman of the famous Highland chief, but to a ship of the desert which had sunk down in the mud, making the most horrible noises imaginable, and seemed likely to be swallowed up after a bit.

"The Johnny who understands him won't do nothing; may I lick him?"

"No, no," said the sergeant, glancing towards his captain, and with a frown at the man which was half a wink, intimating that if it could be done quietly and unofficially a little gentle persuasion used towards the Egyptian driver might expedite matters.

"What's up?" asked the captain, turning back.

"A camel that's down, sir," replied the sergeant.

Tom Strachan put the case in the form of an old nursery jingle, which he murmured for the benefit of another subaltern, Williams, who was by his side at the moment.

"Captain, captain slang sergeant; sergeant won't swear at private; private won't kick Egyptian; Egyptian won't stir up camel; camel won't get out of that; and C Company won't reach Fort Baker to-night."

The captain was equal to the occasion, however.

"Look here, you know," he said to the native driver; "if you don't make that camel go on with that load, you and your two mates will have to carry it yourselves, don't you know."

Whether the "Johnnies," as Private Smith called them, understood all this is perhaps doubtful, as their English was peculiar, but the tone and gesture which accompanied the words were very intelligible, and the Egyptian began to unload the poor bogged beast with great alacrity.

The soldiers, seeing his purpose, helped him, leaving the two other included natives to go on with other camels, and soon the goods carried by the fallen one were conveyed to a sounder place. The wallowing animal being beaten and prodded, emerged from the mud uttering unearthly cries, and was then reloaded, still objecting loudly, and on he went again.

There was no difficulty in catching the others up; other mules and camels in front were in a similar plight. These were also unloaded, and then the men pulled and pushed and heaved them out, first taking off their shoes and stockings, and rolling their trousers up as far as they could.

One man, finding that even so he got those garments sorely bemired, so deep was the slush, took them off altogether; others followed his example, hanging their trousers round their necks. But no one need have been shocked, their limbs were by no means bare, but decently clothed in long clay stockings.

"I say, Tom," said Williams to Strachan, "fancy the regiment turning out like that for Commanding Officers' parade at Aldershot!"

James Gubbins managed to distinguish himself as usual, for he let a floundering mule knock him over and roll upon him. Having to help the animal out, he seized one of his hind legs and hauled at it, with this result—

"Look at Gubbins!" cried one of his comrades; "blest if he hasn't been taking a cast of hisself in clay. Going to have a marble statty, old man?"

"You ought to have a photo taken to send home to your sweetheart, Jim."

"Pity it's the end of February, and not the beginning; what a lovely valentine he would make, surely."

"It's easy to laugh at a chap," spluttered Gubbins, "but this stuff tastes awful; and however shall I clean myself for inspection?"

"Never mind, old chap, you'll be confined to barracks, and then them Johnnies with the spears can't get at you."

"If any chap had a drop of rum instead of jaw to give a chap with his mouth full of filth, there would be more sense in it," said the victim; and it was one of the wisest remarks he had made for a long time. Some good Samaritan had, and administered it, and Gubbins was consoled.

"You have made these Egyptians work," said Tom to his captain.

"Yes, I flatter myself I know how to treat those fellows."

"Oh!" cried Tom.

"What's the matter?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Nothing; only if a poor sub had done it!"

"Done what?"

"Well, you know, it was one of the jokes which were tabooed by general consent."

"Get out!"

But it must be owned that though he meant nothing so atrocious as Tom Strachan implied, the captain did pronounce fellow like Fellah!

The fort was reached at last, and never a mule or camel left on the way. There were some salt-water puddles at the end of the worst part of it, and in these the men contrived to wash the mud off their limbs before resuming their nether garments. Ward the quartermaster was there before them; and he had a rough tent in which to receive the officers of the two companies, and he treated them to ginger-beer and tea. Ward was an old campaigner, who had seen no end of service—been frozen in the Crimea, broiled in India, devoured by stinging insects on the Gold Coast. Strachan liked to listen to his yarns, and was in consequence rather a favourite of his. And if you are going on a campaign, it is not half a bad thing to be on good terms with a doctor, a quartermaster, or any other staff officer. They always have a bite or a drop of something should you happen to come across them when nobody else has.

"You didn't expect this kind of work when you thought, as a boy, how you would like to go into the army, eh?" he asked him.

"No," said Tom, laughing; "they don't enter into these little details in books. It's mostly feasting and fighting, with other fellows getting killed, that a school-boy looks forward to."

"Ah, the fighting is the best of it; there is something to keep you going in that. Give me the chap that will stand hunger, thirst, fatigue, want of sleep, and fever, and be as jolly as a sand-boy all the time. That's the sort for a soldier."

"But all that would be no good if he would not stand up when the pinch came."

"Of course not; but a fairly bred one—I mean English, German, French, Italian, Dutch—is bound to stand if he is properly trained and led. If he is rightly drilled it does not occur to him to run away unless his comrades do; and then, after a bit, he gets excited. Then, as to generals; I don't say that it's an easy thing to fight an army well, but it is easier than to feed it. I tell you all the real art of war lies in little details that no one ever talks about."

"Then you are not a hero worshipper, Ward?"

"Not I, I have seen too much. I take no credit from men who get mentioned in despatches, win the Victoria Cross, and so forth; but there is a lot of luck in it. Heaps of men deserve these prizes just as much as those who get them. Indeed, the most deserving of all get killed out of hand, and make no claim. You see, one man does a thing with a flourish, which attracts notice, and is popular, and gets watched; and another is quiet and retiring, and afraid that if he pushes himself he may not prove as valuable an article as he has led people to expect; and a smart or plucky thing which gives promotion, or the Victoria Cross, to the first, merely elicits a 'well done, old fellow!' from his mates for the second."

"And that's worth risking a good bit for!" cried Green, with his eyes sparkling, and a heightened colour.

"Hark to Green! Good lad! By Jove, he's right!" Green blushed.

"Why are you like King Duncan's blood on Lady Macbeth's hand, Edwards?" asked Tom Strachan of the last speaker.

"I can never guess riddles," said Edwards. "Give it up."

"Because you have made the Green one red," said Strachan.

"You will never miss the Victoria Cross for want of cheek, at any rate," said Fitzgerald.

"I am glad of that," replied Tom, "as I have my plan for it. I mean to stick behind you the first time you go to do anything heroic, and if you get killed I shall hope to get the credit of your action."

"So you want me to be knocked on the head, do you, you young villain?"

"Not at all, sir; no one can say I would rather have your room than your company."

"What are the boys coming to?" cried Fitzgerald. "When I was a sub, I no more dared to speak to my captain like that than to—to walk off parade without permission," he added, after pausing to think what was the highest possible stretch of mortal impudence.

"Perhaps your captain had not your appreciation of wit," replied Tom.

"Wit, indeed! You call your bad puns wit, do you?"

Next day the rest of the troops marched in from Trinkitat, and bivouacked outside the fort. They had made a fair start, and commenced the campaign now, and the novelty of eating their evening meal in the open, by the light of a bonfire, had a charm for some of the young ones. The officers' mess of the First Blankshire was held round an oval trench. A coat thrown on the earth dug out of it served for a seat; the feet were placed in it, and the pewter plate with food on it was held on the knees. This is infinitely more comfortable than feeding in a cramped position on the ground.

Though they knew all about it before, it seemed strange to the inexperienced to lie down at night in the open, like animals, instead of going to bed, but some were so tired that, not being on duty, they rolled themselves up in the coats they had been sitting on, and courted a nap directly they had done feeding.

Those who did so, however, were presently aroused by a tremendous cheering, which made them jump up, and run to see what had happened. It was the arrival of the Sixty-fifth, who had been stopped on their return from India, and sent to Trinkitat instead of England. They had only landed that afternoon, and had marched on at once. It was not long, however, before the challenge of the sentries, and the snores of sleepers alone broke the silence of the little host, lying stretched in slumber under the faint light of the new moon. Their sleep was disturbed by showers of rain, which interfered with all but the very sound, and even these were fairly roused at last by a regular drencher, the water coming down tropical fashion, in bucketfuls.

"Halloa, Green!" said Strachan, to that young hero, whom he found standing in astonishment, drenched, but not dismayed. "Do you believe that it rains sometimes in the Soudan, now?"

"I do," replied Green, solemnly. "Books talk nonsense."

"I wish it was time to start," said Edwards, joining them. "It seems so absurd to stand here saturated, with no possibility of resting oneself, when one might be getting on."

"It is more than half-past four, and reveille is to sound at five. Let's try and light the fire again; there's a bit smouldering, in spite of the rain."

This was Strachan's suggestion, and voted a good one; and they had just succeeded in raising a blaze, when a bugle started the most romantic, melancholy, musical call in the whole category. I mean in itself, and not for its associations; and yet when one thinks how many thousands of brave men have been roused by it to go to death, it is not free from these. Number one only got about three notes start, when a second began, and presently the whole air was full of plaintive sound.

Then flickers of fire shone out, and coffee was boiled, and the men got their breakfasts. Then, after a while, the Fall-in sounded, and the different corps and detachments stood to their arms. The commanding officer of the First Blankshire went round the ranks, and spoke to the men here and there. He did not remark on the mud which still clove to James Gubbins, but he stopped opposite Green.

"Why, what is the matter, Green; where and how are you hurt?" he asked.

"I, sir?" said Green, in astonishment; "I believe I am all right."

"Why, you are bleeding like a pig!" And so he was, from his right ear.

"I must have cut it with my sword, sir, carrying it carelessly. I forgot that I had had it sharpened."

"Well, it can't be very bad, if you did not know it," said the colonel, laughing as he rode on. The bleeding stopped presently, but not before it had made Green's kharkee sleeve and his sword, down which there had been a trickle, look exceedingly warlike.

"He has fleshed his maiden blade!" said Tom Strachan.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

EL TEB.

The force started on the march about eight o'clock. It moved in square, with camels, mules, baggage, ammunition in the centre. Also inside were the surgeons and ambulance, and some troops ready to strengthen any weak part in the course of action; there were guns, either machine-guns, (as guns which fire bullets through individual barrels by turning a handle— various improvements upon the mitrailleuse—are called) or Krupp guns, at the corners, manned either by sailors or artillerymen.

The square was not a square in the sense of Euclid, because two sides of it were longer than the other two. One of the longest faces led, the men being in line. The other formed the rear face, and moved also in line, turned to the right-about; but when halted and fronted it would face to the rear. The side faces marched, the right side "fours left," the left side "fours right," so that when halted and fronted they too would face outwards.

The officer in command, General Graham, had two men who knew the ground well, Baker and Burnaby, to point out the best route to avoid obstacles which would break the formation, and so they moved over a flat expanse of sand, with now and then a hill overgrown with low bushes. Not far from the line of march these sand-hills were larger and more numerous, and the bushes thicker, and amongst and beyond these parties of the enemy were hovering; to guard the infantry against a sudden attack from these, a squadron of light cavalry were spread out half a mile ahead, covering the flanks.

"I ask your pardon, sir," said a sergeant to Strachan, as they tramped through the sand, "but do you happen to know what we are going to fight about? Not that it matters, only it gives an interest like to the business."

"Oh, yes, sergeant," said Tom. "We are going to relieve Tokar."

"So I thought, sir. But then, you see, Tokar, they say, has fallen."

"I believe it has," replied Tom; "but that was the original idea. And if we are a bit late, why then we must show them how we would have relieved it if it had not been taken. The Arabs had no right to be in such a hurry. You remember the sham fights we used to have at Aldershot? Neither side was to commence manoeuvring before a certain hour, when a gun fired. Well, these Arabs have not played fair, but stolen a march upon us before the proper time. But that is no reason why we should go home after all this trouble and preparation without a fight."

"Of course not, sir!"

"Well, then, they have got the wells at El Teb, and have raised fortifications to defend them, I believe, and our job to-day is to get them out of that. Then we go on to Tokar, and we shall see if they make another fight there."

"Thank you, sir," said the sergeant; "I understand quite enough now."

A puff of smoke from the bushes; another; twenty. But no bullets came, the enemy firing from too long a distance. It was like a peaceable field day with blank cartridge burning.

Trinkitat harbour was in full view, and an energetic ship there, seeing the Arabs' position thus indicated, tried to throw shells amongst them. But they, too, were out of range. Only, as shells when properly constructed burst somewhere, and these were sent over the heads of friends, their exploding short was dangerous, and after two or three attempts the experiment was dropped.

The main body of the cavalry followed in rear of the square, and to the left of it, in three lines.

"Look at those birds!" said Green to Tom, coming up to him to draw his attention. "What lots of them! They look like vultures surely, some of them."

"And they are vultures, too. What carrion have they got there I wonder. Faugh! One can smell it from here."

"Look at General Baker, what a stern expression he has got," said Fitzgerald, letting his subaltern come up to him. "What a scene those birds and this stench must recall for him!"

"Ah, to be sure!" said Tom. "This was the line of the flight of his Egyptian army a month ago, when they let the Arabs massacre them without even attempting to resist. Well, we won't do that if we can help it, will we, Green? We will strike a blow, even if we cut off our noses as well as our ears."

"There, there, don't chaff him, Strachan; you are too bad. And look to your half-company. Close up, there!"

The enemy kept up their innocuous out-of-distance popping, principally at the advance cavalry. The square was halted two or three times for a minute's rest, which the men dragging the guns must have particularly wanted, considering the loose nature of the soil. Then on again, after between two and three hours' march.

Tom Strachan could see huts, and what looked like a fort with guns; earthworks also in another part, with flags stuck upon them. Also, of all earthly things in such a spot, an old boiler, such as you may see in some Thames-side yard, where old vessels are broken up and worn-out machinery accumulates.

Here the cavalry skirmishers, having done their work, retired to their main body. Another halt, almost within rifle-shot of the position, and the men flung themselves carelessly down on the sand. Major Elmfoot was examining the defences through his field-glass.

"That thing looks like an old boiler, major," said Fitzgerald.

"And it is an old boiler," replied the other. "I was hearing about it the other day; there was a sugar-mill here once; that ruined building was part of it."

"Ten-shun!"

The men sprang to their feet all together. The enemy were close, and there would be serious work in a minute. A flash and a puff of smoke from the earthworks, a singing in the air, another flash and report close by, and the fragments of a shell were flying about their ears. Two more bursting right over, and a man here and there dropped.

Then the rifle-fire opened in earnest, and those who had never yet heard it learned what the sound of a bullet was like. More men were hit, collapsed, and were picked up by the ambulance.

Still the square pressed steadily on, the men stepping jauntily as if marching past. Green said to himself with joy—

"I am under fire, really under fire! And I am not half so frightened as I thought I should be."

"Mayn't I give them one back, sir?" a man asked him.

"Not yet; presently," he replied.

He had hardly spoken before the words, "Halt! Lie down!" were passed, and return fire was opened, both from guns and rifles, overpowering and almost silencing that of the enemy.

"Advance!" Up the men jumped again, and pressed forward towards the works.

The ground was broken by lumps of rock, bushes, and holes, which made temporary breaks in the ranks as the men had to give way to pass on either side of them, and then run up into their places again. Behind every rock and bush, crouched in every pit or hollow, were Arabs, who seized the opportunity to dash amongst the men, getting into the very ranks, and striking with their spears and sharp swords right and left, and on equal terms.

For the rifle, considered as a firearm, was of no use at such very close quarters; the bayonet at the end of it, or the butt, was all that could be used. The bayonet exercise is often spoken of as a bit of gymnastics rather than of practical value; but smartness in the delivery of a thrust was just everything now. In civilised warfare it may be that bayonets are seldom crossed, but when you have to deal with a barbarian foe, who places his trust in cold steel, the case is different. For the first thrust perhaps the bayonet has the advantage, for the weight of the rifle behind it sends it very quick and true, and difficult to parry. But the point once turned or avoided, the spear gets the pull, as, by drawing back the hand which holds it, the point can be withdrawn to the shoulder, and launched, without a chance of parrying, at any unguarded spot.

True, that the English soldier can also shorten arms, but it takes both hands to do that, and in the meantime the whole body is exposed; while the Arab shortens his spear with the right-hand alone, and the left arm, with a round shield of hippopotamus hide upon it, can be used to put aside the bayonet thrust. Unless wounded to death, they fight on when they have fallen, clutching at their enemies' legs, stabbing while they can hold a weapon.

Such struggling as this caused the advance of the square to be very slow, for those portions of the front line which had no obstacles to enable the enemy to get amongst them had to wait while the men engaged in these single combats despatched their foes and were ready to advance again. Not that they wasted their time, for they had plenty of shooting to do to clear their own immediate front.

Nor was this the only cause of delay; the rear line of the square was also subject to rushes of the enemy, who lay in ambush till it had passed, and then dashed upon it. To meet the attack it must halt and face about, and the rest of the square must halt too, or a gap would be opened through which the determined foe would rush. Then, again, the flanks, or side faces of the square, were also attacked. These had to turn towards the front when the square advanced, not in file, or two deep, as they stood, because men moving like that must always straggle out too much, but in fours. Thus, on each forward movement, the right side of the square formed fours left, the left side of it fours right. But in this way the men would have their sides towards the surrounding enemy, and would be helpless. So when attacked they had to halt and front, thus becoming a line two deep again, facing their foes. But this required another general halt till the enemy were killed or driven back.

It is difficult to explain all this without using technical terms, but I think you will understand how absolutely necessary it was to move steadily, with the men forming the four sides of this square standing shoulder to shoulder, and leaving no openings.

If the forces opposed were about equal, no such square as this, which moves with such cumbersome difficulty, would be thought of; but when a mere handful of men have to encounter countless hordes, it is employed to avoid being attacked in front and rear and flanks at the same time, and to protect the wounded, the water, and the spare ammunition. But let the overpowering masses of the enemy once break into the centre, all advantage is gone, and the small body is worse off than it would be advancing in any other way, because the four sides would be attacked in front and rear, cut off from each other, and deprived of mutual support. The ammunition would be seized, and the wounded in the ambulances massacred, while the soldiers would just have to fight back to back while their strength lasted.

To prevent a partial irruption resulting in such a catastrophe, spare troops moved inside the square to oppose a second line, ready to repel any Arabs who broke in, and so aid their comrades to regain their formation.

The guns were at the corners of the square. While there was a clear space in front of them, and they were well served, nothing alive could approach. But suppose a hillock close in front, or a pit, full of Arabs, into which they could not fire, just under their muzzles, and they would become weak places, where the enemy could surge in without being met by the bristling bayonets, and so stab the soldiers on the right and left of the angle in their backs, increasing the gap, through which their friends might penetrate. And the enemy saw this plainly enough, and planned dodges to aid their rushes upon these corners.

There was one good thing for the British troops that day: a nice breeze swept the smoke away, and they could see their enemies' movements, and so stall off many a rush with their fire before it came to close conflict. If a thick pall of smoke had combined with the broken ground to cover the attacks of the Arabs, the losses would most likely have been heavier, and the battle more protracted.

Tom Strachan had acquired an accomplishment which promised to be useful before the day was over. He and others were practising with their new revolvers one day on the grounds near the rifle butts, where they were quartered, when the colonel rode by, and stopped to look on.

"I tell you what you should do," he said to them, "you should practise with the left hand. I have learned to shoot as well with my left hand as my right, and I believe it saved my life in India during the Mutiny. It leaves the sword-arm free to ward off a cut or thrust if there are more than one at you, or you fail to shoot your man dead."

All tried it, but Strachan at least persevered, and it came quite natural to him after a while to use his left hand for that purpose. Not only that, but the determination to conquer the awkwardness he felt at first made him practise pistol shooting much more than he would otherwise have done, and he became a first-rate shot.

The weapon, however, lay in its leather case at present; he had enough to do to look after his men, and to catch and repeat the word of command amidst the din, without thinking of personal combat. He, like Green, had got an edge put on his sword. It was Kavanagh's present, and during the lull preceding the attack, he had thought of his old friend, wondered where he was, and regretted that they were not side by side that day. He and Harry Forsyth—what fun it would have been! But when the firing once commenced, he had no thought but of what he was about.

"Fire low, men! Steady! Don't shoot wildly. Harris, cover your man, just as if he were a target at home."

"Close up, there; never mind Roberts, the ambulance will look to him. Good man, Gubbins! That's your sort; can't well miss 'em at ten yards. Aim at the waist-cloth. Cease firing! Advance; fours left there! Close up."

Orders could not always be heard in the din; it was necessary to watch the front of the square, and move on or halt as it did, unless a particular rush at a certain point compelled those at it to take the initiative, and then others had to conform to it.

When the square got close to the right end of the curved earthwork, the troops nearest to it charged at it with a cheer, leaving a big gap in the ranks they left. Had they succeeded in carrying the place with the rush, this would not have mattered; but it could not be done. Tap a bee-hive smartly with your stick on a mild May day, and see the inhabitants swarm out at you, and you may form some idea of how the Hadendowas flew over the parapet at their assailants. Every one of them fixed his eye on an enemy, and went straight at him. Every soldier found himself with two or three opponents, and, instead of pressing on into the earthwork, had enough to do to hold his ground.

The cool, brave man, who made sure of getting rid of one with a steady shot a few yards off, and then plied his bayonet till he got a moment's pause to re-load, came off well; the flurried soldier, who was not quite sure whether to stand or retire, who missed or only wounded his man, and then stood strictly on the defensive, was most likely overpowered and speared.

The greater the daring the greater was the safety, and vice versa. But brave or timid, the men who had rushed out of the ranks to attack were borne back by the sheer weight of numbers. The Soudanese, however, never got through the gap that was left. The Marines inside the square promptly presented themselves as a second barrier, till the attackers, retiring in good order, fell back into their places again.

But there was some hard fighting at the point for a minute or two. Good old-fashioned cut and thrust, hammer and tongs, like cutting out a ship. Tom Strachan found himself, he did not know how, with the hilt of his sword right up against a Soudanese breast-bone, the weapon having passed right through the man's body. But there was no expression of pain in the dying face so close to his own, only hate and defiance. He was killed, not conquered.

Before he could disencumber himself from the body another Hadendowa rushed at him with uplifted spear. Tom levelled his pistol at him, and pressed the trigger; but the weapon did not explode. He had already fired all the barrels.

Another second and the spear-head would have been buried in his throat, but suddenly the Arab's arm dropped, nearly severed by a cut from Green, which caught him between wrist and elbow. The wounded man caught his spear with the left hand, and strove to stab, but before he had time he got the point in his throat, and that stopped him.

At this time Private Gubbins had a narrow escape. He fired at an Arab, about twenty yards off, and hit him hard, but he came on at him all the same, trying to spear him. Gubbins thrust at him with his bayonet, but perhaps rather timidly; anyhow he missed his body, though he wounded him again in the shoulder, and with that, and parrying, knocked the spear out of his hand. Whereupon the Soudanese caught hold of the bayonet and tried to unfix it. He could not manage that, and a tug of war commenced, in which Gubbins, being the weaker and less active, was pulled bodily out of the ranks, and would have been made mincemeat of had not some one shot the Arab through the head, while his rear rank man pulled him back. He owned afterwards that he was fairly scared.

"Thought that 'ere cannibal couldn't die!" he said, "Fust I shot him, and then I bayoneted him, and he only snarled like a wild cat. Fancy a chap pulling like that with one hole in his stomach and another in his shoulder! 'Taint reasonable."

They fought like that, many of them.

When the momentary confusion was over, and the square again compact, Strachan found an opportunity of slipping fresh cartridges into his revolver; the work in prospect did not look like being suited to an empty pistol. He had hardly done it before they were under the parapet of the earthwork.

Here there was a pause; the Arabs, not dashing out, the British, after their late experience, apparently not quite knowing whether they ought to break the square formation by dashing in. Not to mention that the Arabs were ticklish gentlemen to tumble over a bank into the middle of!

During this pause a stalwart, almost gigantic figure was seen walking up the slope with a double-barrelled fowling-piece in his hand. Coming to the parapet he brought the gun to his shoulder, fired right and left, and calmly opening the breech, replaced the two empty cartridges with two fresh ones, just as if he were standing during a battue, shooting pheasants and not Soudanese.

"Look at Burnaby!" cried some one, and hundreds were looking at him, expecting that at last he must fall, this dauntless traveller, keen observer, and born soldier, who courted peril as other men court safety; who spurned luxury and loved hardship; who seemed to treat the king of terrors as a playfellow.

Again he gave the enemy in the earthwork, and within a few yards of him, both barrels, and retreated a few steps down to re-load.

The Soudanese followed to the top of the parapet, but the moment one of them showed his head above it he was shot by the soldiers close below.

Directly he had got fresh cartridges in, Colonel Burnaby stepped back to his old place, and added another brace to his bag. But this combat between one man and a host would never take the fort, and the foremost line did not stand long at gaze, but ran up and clambered over the artificial bank, which was about four feet high, pouring a volley into the defenders as they did so. And now single combats again commenced, and the interior of the earthwork resembled an ancient arena.

The theoretical duty of an officer in action was suspended, for he had to fight physically and practically like the men, the only difference lying in the arms he wielded.

His sword was no longer a baton of office, but a weapon to cut and thrust with, and the better its temper and the keener its edge, the greater friend was it to him that day. Not always did it prove true.

Captain Wilson, RN, cut down an Arab who was about to kill a soldier, and his blade shivered to the hilt, leaving him without a weapon to ward off a cut which wounded him, though happily not severely, in the head.

Captain Littledale, of the York and Lancaster Regiment, also bent his sword over one of the Soudanese in the fort, and would have lost his life had not two of his company come to his rescue. Some of the men's weapons proved equally rotten.

"Look here, sergeant," said a fine broad-shouldered young fellow, whose face was like a sweep's with powder and dust, and whose clothes were bespattered with what Tennyson delicately calls "drops of onset," as he showed his bayonet twisted like a corkscrew, with the point bent over into a hook.

"Why, what have you been using it for, Sullivan?" asked the sergeant, taking it into his hand.

"Only prodding Johnnies, and not above three of them. It wouldn't go into the last, and I had to polish him off with the butt end. Might have smashed the stock, for their heads is uncommon hard."

"It's a deal too bad," said the sergeant. "I'll show it to the captain, and he will report it. Take Brown's rifle and bayonet, he will never want it again, poor fellow."

And indeed poor Brown was lying at the foot of the parapet with a spear completely through his body, his first and last battle ended. The spears and swords of the savages did not break or bend, or lose their edge over the first bone they touched, like the weapons of their civilised opponents.

Fitzgerald came up, and the sergeant showed him the twisted bayonet. He was not easily put out, but the sight was too much even for his placid temper.

"Keep it, sergeant, keep it. We will see if we cannot get it stuck up in Saint James's Park with the trophies of captured guns, that the British public may see the weapons soldiers are sent out to fight with. The man who is responsible for this, and the fellow who forged it, ought to be shot."

"Forged is a good word," said Major Elmfoot. "To pass off stuff like that for good steel is rank forgery, and a worse crime than making bad money, for here men's lives are sacrificed by it."

"I wish we had some of 'em here!" murmured one of the men.

"Aye, and the triangles rigged up," said another, "I should like to lay on the first dozen myself."

And so say all of us.

This conversation took place after the earthwork was cleared of the enemy—at least of the living enemy, for the whole interior was crowded with their dead—and while the sailors and artillerymen were turning the two Krupp guns found in it upon the retiring foe and the ruins of the old sugar-mill to which the Soudanese still clung. And the troops had a little rest while the leaders determined the direction of the next attack. And the water-bottles you may be sure were mostly drained, for the men's throats were like lime-kilns.

An officer standing on the highest part of the parapet beckoned to Strachan, who doubled up and joined the group assembled there.

"Look," said the friend who had called him, pointing to the right, "the cavalry are going to have their turn." Sure enough, there were the three lines of cavalry, advancing at a walk towards the dense hordes of Soudanese who covered the plain, some retiring slowly and reluctantly, but the majority still holding their ground.

As they drew nearer the Hussars broke into a trot, and then, when quite close, they were loosed, and swept down on the foe at full gallop, a simoon of glittering steel. Surely the grandest sight the modern world can afford; the last remnant of chivalry. For ever since the invention of fire-arms the infantry officer's place in battle has necessarily been in rear of his men; but the cavalry officer still rides in front, yards in front. He believes that his men are behind him, but he sees them not. Alone he plunges into the enemy's ranks, and the first shock of the encounter is his. He is a knight without his grandsire's defensive armour, and exposed to rifle bullets and bursting shells, which the old paladin knew not.

"Oh, to be with them!" cried Tom in his excitement, uttering what was in the hearts of all the group, as with eager eyes, parted lips, and breath coming short, they saw the line swallowed up in the sea of Arabs. A minute's confusion, with nothing distinguishable but the flash of weapons, and they re-appeared beyond the masses through whom they cut their way, prostrate figures marking their track, and were now serrying their ranks, disordered in the fierce passage.

But the spectators could watch no more, for the shells failed to dislodge the Arabs from the ruined mill, and it was impossible to advance and leave any such indomitable fanatics, who cared not for numbers and despised death, so long as they could wreak their wrath upon an infidel, in their rear; and the immediate business was to turn them out of that lair.

There were about a couple of hundred sheltered by the ruin and the old boiler; and for some distance round about the ground was regularly honey-combed with rifle-pits, each of which contained an Arab, crouching down, spear in hand, only desiring to kill an enemy and die.

It was said before that they swarmed out of the fort earlier in the day like bees when their hive is tapped. Like bees, too, when angered, they only sought to sting, though they knew that the act of stinging was their own destruction. As a soldier came to the edge of an apparently empty hole in the ground, a man would spring out upon him and transfix him before he had time to offer resistance. Not that this succeeded often.

The men soon learned to approach these rifle-pits with their muzzles lowered, finger on trigger, the point of the bayonet over the opening before they came up to it. Then, if the Arab made his spring, he was transfixed; if he kept crouching, waiting for the other to pass, he was shot. A large number of the holes became the graves they looked like before the boiler was reached.

Here the massacre was horrible, for at that point the state of things was reversed, and the Soudanese were few in number, while the English were the many. And it was a revolting thing to have to shoot down and stab this handful of heroes.

But it could not be helped; they would not fly, and they would not surrender; and to endeavour to spare one of them was to insure your own death or that of a friend. It was even necessary to slay the slain, for they would sham and lie still, to spring up when the English had passed and stab one in the back; then stand with extended arms to be shot, with a smile of triumph and joy, secure of Paradise since he had sent a double-dyed infidel, a disbeliever, both in Mahomet and the Mahdi, to his doom.

The old sugar-mill and the ground about it being at length cleared, the victorious square advanced upon the wells. The whole body of Arabs were now in retreat, dismayed at last by the terrible slaughter amongst their best and bravest; for the reckless heroism which is described, though there were so many hundreds of examples of it, as to entitle it to be fairly considered as characteristic of the race, could not, of course, be universal, or they would be absolutely invincible, except by extermination.

They were brave, every man and boy of them, but the vast majority were not mad fanatics; and, indeed, a certain number of the tribes engaged did not believe in the Mahdi at all, but joined him partly because he was the strongest, and partly because they hated the Turks—and to them Turks and Egyptians were all one—and their oppressive corrupt government, and the Mahdi had thrown it off.

But they were not prepared to commit actual suicide, and did not want to go to Mahomet's Paradise just yet. So, after a certain number were killed without gaining any advantage, they grew disheartened, and retired. And then the machine-guns sent their continuous streams of bullets tearing through the dense masses, and volleys from the Martini- Henrys ran the death list up still higher, and the retreat became flight.

They marched steadily on. At the wells the Arab sheiks strove hard to rally their warriors, charging alone, and, in some instances, weaponless, to shame their men into following them. But it was no use. "Tommy Atkins" was not flurried or excited now, success had made him firm and confident, and there was no wild firing. Every shot was aimed as steadily as if the charging Arab were an inanimate target and whoever came within that zone of fire was swept into eternity.

This was an expiring effort, and when two companies of the Gordon Highlanders had carried the last earthwork, with three guns and a machine-gun in it, the enemy made no further resistance, but left their camp, the huts containing the spoils of Baker Pasha's army—cut to pieces by them a month ago—and the wells in the conquerors' possession.

A well is a grand name for a hole in the mud, but the water was fresh and plentiful, and there were ten of them. It is difficult to keep the bands of discipline very tight when men are flushed with victory, wild with thirst, and water is before them. So, perhaps, there was a little crowding which defeated its own object, causing needless delay in obtaining the coveted water for all. But order was soon restored, and every one served.

"Shall we go on to Tokar to-night, do you think?" Tom Strachan asked his captain.

"I hope not," replied Fitzgerald; "I want something to eat, don't you? Glory is all very well, but one cannot dine off it. Besides, it is absurd to cram too much of it into one day. If four hours' fighting, part of which was as severe as Association football playing, is not enough for one day, I should like to know what General Graham would have."

The general was not unreasonable, or he thought it better to hold the wells. At any rate, the troops remained in the position lately held by the enemy, strengthening it in parts, after the men had had a rest, and bivouacking there for the night. Provisions came up from Fort Baker, and the officers of the First Blankshire had a good mess—tinned beef, chicken and ham, sardines, and other delicacies, with biscuit and tea, with just a taste of rum apiece to top up with.

A really useful invention is that of preserving fresh meat in tins. The man who found that out, and he who discovered chloroform, ought to go up to the head of the Inventors' Class, in my humble opinion. I hope they made their fortunes. You may despise tinned food at home, when you can get fresh-killed meat and poultry not so overcooked. But go a long voyage, or even on a yachting tour, travel in wild countries for exploration, or to shoot big game, and then say.

And when they lit their pipes and lay round the bivouac fire, talking over the events of the day, what a time that was! The First Blankshire had not come off scathless as regarded men or officers. There was a captain lying yonder with his cloak over his face who would never hear the cheery bugle call again; a lieutenant was in the ambulance tent with a bullet in his leg, forcing himself to bear the pain without moaning. And of those present, several bore gashes which would have been thought nasty at home, though after being dressed by the surgeon they were accounted scratches of no signification, beyond a certain smarting and throbbing. Green had a bandage under his chin, and going up on each side till his helmet covered it.

"No," he said, when asked if it was binding his self-inflicted cut of the morning; "it's the other ear. Curiously enough, a bit of a shell or a bullet, or something, has taken the lobe off; and as it would not stop bleeding, and the flies were troublesome when I took off my helmet, which hurt, I asked a doctor to look at it, and he put this thing on to keep the lint in its place."

"You will never be able to wear earrings, if they come into fashion for men, my poor Green," said Strachan. "But what is the row with your hand, Edwards? I did not see it was bound up in a handkerchief before."

"Ah, it's nothing; only a bite."

"A bite!"

"Yes. There was a poor little Arab chap, such a game little boy, with a small spear made for him, fighting like a bantam till a bullet broke his leg and knocked him over. He lay in the first earthwork, and I tried to give him a drink, but the little rat darted up at me and bit my hand."

"Have you had it cauterised? I do believe these savages are mad," said the major. "And what became of the varmint?"

"I don't know; we had to move on just then."

"That is the worst part of these Arabs, letting their children go into the ranks so soon. I hate to see babies made into little men and women. If they must fight, let them punch one another's heads with their fists."

"I suppose, major, that as these Arabs are always fighting with one another, if there is no one else, it becomes a necessary branch of education."

"Well, at any rate," said Jones, who was learned in dogs—their training and management—and who, indeed, was known as Doggy Jones, "they need not 'enter' them to the British soldier. There are plenty of Egyptians for them to worry till they have come to their full growth."

"That is a curious thing about General Baker," said the colonel to Major Elmfoot.

"Yes, indeed, it is."

"Was he hit, sir?" asked Dudley. "I heard something of it."

"Yes, by a splinter of a shell in the face, just as we came under fire."

"But I saw him after that."

"Oh, yes; he got the wound dressed, and remounted, knowing how useful he could be, knowing the ground. But it is a nasty wound for all that, MacBean says. The strange thing is that he should have passed unscathed through the hordes a month ago, when his troops fled and left him unprotected, and the chances against him looked a hundred to one, and get hit to-day; the odds were a hundred to one the other way."

"The most curious case of that sort was Sir Charles Napier," said the major. "He was one of the most unlucky men that ever lived in the way of getting hit. In every great battle in which he took part during the Peninsular War he was severely wounded. But at Meeanee and Dubba, where he was in command, and almost everything depended upon him, and where, too, he exposed himself in a manner which made the Sindhees think he had a charmed life, he did not get a scratch."

"I wonder whether those Indian fellows fought as hard as these Arabs?" observed Green.

"Not much difference, I should say," said the major. "They flung themselves on the bayonets, and, if not mortally wounded, seized the muzzles and pressed them to their bodies with the left hand, to get one cut at their enemy and die. I don't quite see how that could be beaten in the way of game fighting, though these fellows equal it. I saw one do much the same thing to-day."

"And did Sir Charles Napier fight them in square, sir?" asked Green, who was of an inquiring mind on professional subjects.

"No, he met them in line, and his men had no breech-loaders in those days; not even percussion caps; only the old brown bess with a flint and steel lock, and a good bayonet on the end of her."

"But perhaps the odds were not so great."

"Quite, by all accounts. It is true that the Indians fought with swords and shields, and, after firing their matchlocks, charged home with those weapons. A swordsman requires space for the swing of his arm, so, however more numerous they may be, they must fight in looser order than soldiers armed with the bayonet, and therefore, at the actual point of meeting, each individual swordsman finds at least two antagonists opposed to him in the front rank alone. Now these Arabs, fighting principally with spears, can very often come in a much denser mass. I only give that idea for what it is worth. I think it may make a good deal of difference. The nature of the ground, also, would alter the condition of the contest. But, at any rate, I do not quite see how we should be safe against getting taken in the rear in any other than the square formation."



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

TOUCH AND GO!

Tired men cannot go on talking all night, even about the events of an exciting day, and one by one our friends rolled themselves up in their coats and went off to sleep. And how the unfortunates on sentry-go envied them! That was an infliction which Tantalus escaped, but it might well compare with those which have caused his name to be embodied in our language.

To feel that the lives of a number of other people as well as your own depend on your keeping extremely wide awake, when you are dead beat and have to fight against the strongest possible inclination to doze even as you walk about, is really no light trial of fortitude, though it is not reckoned amongst the hardships of campaigning. But if you are within sight of your sleeping comrades, and within hearing of their snores, it becomes doubly exasperating, and might really sour the temper if it were not for the consolatory reflection that another time you will be the happy sleeper, and one of the present performers on the nose will be listening to your efforts to play upon that organ.

It has been whispered that evil men when on sentry have been known to feel a grim delight in an alarm which has dissipated the slumber of their comfortable comrades, but we may surely hope that this is slanderous. However that may be, the slumbers of those who were not kept awake by the pain of wounds or by duty the night after El Teb were not disturbed, and next day the main body, after a guard had been left at the wells, went on to Tokar.

"Do you think they will fight?" asked Green of one of his seniors during a short halt.

"Sure to," replied the other. "You saw for yourself what determined demons they are, and it is not likely that they will give up a place they have only just taken without striking a blow for it."

"Do you think they will fight?" asked Tom Strachan of another, not in the hearing of the first oracle, who had moved away.

"Not they!" responded the second. "After such a licking as they got yesterday all the fight will be taken out of them."

"Which shall we believe, Green?" said Tom presently.

"It is very puzzling," replied the inquiring mind. "Suppose we wait and see before we make up our minds."

"A Daniel come to judgment!" exclaimed Strachan. "A second Daniel! We will wait."

"Hulloa! There's Charley Halton!" as a smart young cavalry officer cantered past with a message, having delivered which he came to exchange greetings with his friends.

One of the most enviable of mortals was Halton, a lad who might be the model for either painter or poet in search of an ideal hero. Handsome, strong, active, acquiring proficiency in all games and athletic exercises almost instinctively, a horseman with the hands of a Chaloner, and the seat of a Land, endowed with a bright intelligence which seized the common sense of things, and comprehended the meaning of an order as well as its literal injunctions, and a happy disposition which made a trouble of nothing, he was a general favourite wherever he went. He was attached as a galloper—or bearer of orders—to the General's staff, but, being employed to take a message the day before to his own regiment, he charged with them, and the officers of the Blankshire who knew him, and witnessed the charge from a distance, were anxious to know for certain what had occurred, the reports which had reached them being too contradictory for reliance.

"Well, Charley, did you eat them all yesterday?"

"Not quite; we have left a few for you. Eat them, by Jove! They were near eating us."

"Why, you seemed to go through them grandly."

"Yes, but it was like going through water, which closes on you as you go. The beggars lay flat, or crouched in holes, and cut at the horses as they passed, to hamstring or maim them; and good-bye to the poor fellow whose horse fell! We ought to have had lances, and it would have been a very different tale. But the troopers' swords could not reach the beggars, who are as lithe as monkeys. If they had run it would have been easy to get a cut at them; so it would if they had stood up. But they were as cool as cucumbers, and dodged just at the right moment. Of course some were not quite so spry as others, and got cut down; it was a case of the survival of the fittest. What acrobats they would be in time if this game lasted long enough!

"But it was like a nightmare. You know when you have a dream that you are trying to kill something which won't die; some beast of the eel persuasion. We went through them, cutting all we knew; re-formed; came back, doing ditto; through them a third time; and then there was no satisfaction worth calling such. The fellows were broken up indeed, and a good lot were sabred, but not so many as there ought to have been after undergoing one cutting up, let alone three. And the scattered individuals still showed fight. And we lost awfully; no wonder, for I will tell you what I saw.

"A man rode at an Arab who fired and missed him, and then seized his spear, with the apparent intention of meeting him as an infantry soldier should, according to Cocker. But when the horse was two yards from him he fell flat as a harlequin. The trooper leant over on the off side as low as he could and cut at the beggar, but could not reach him, and the moment he was past, the Arab jumped up and thrust his spear through him from behind. I never saw anything done so quickly in all my life; it was like magic.

"There was a clever old soldier who was not to be done that way; when he saw he could not get at his Arab, he slipped off his horse before you could say 'knife,' parried his spear-thrust, ran him through the body, and was up again like a shot. But it was heart-breaking business altogether; you should have seen the horses afterwards, cut about awfully, poor things; and we lost heavily in men too. The Colonel has had the dead Arabs' spears collected, and armed his regiment with them; and if they get another chance, you will see much more satisfactory business, I expect. But I must be off."

And off accordingly he went, his horse seeming pleased and proud to carry and obey him. And on went the brigade also towards Tokar.

Oracle number two proved the correct one; the enemy made no stand at the place, but streamed away at their approach, while the inhabitants came out to greet them with every demonstration of joy and gratitude.

Interpreters were few, and apt to be absorbed by senior officers, but it was gathered afterwards that the Tokarites were denouncing the Mahdi as a false prophet and heretic, whose soldiers had despoiled them of their goods, and only spared their lives on condition of their believing in him, and this condition they had thought it best to pretend to comply with, though their consciences rebuked them sorely for the pretended apostacy.

But though our friends of the First Blankshire could not understand all this, whatever officers of other corps may have done, the pantomime of the men, women, and children was unmistakable, and was only intended to express the most enthusiastic delight.

"I shall never make it out," said Green. "Have we relieved the place after all, then?"

"Cannot say; we shall find out, perhaps in general orders."

"Catch a newspaper correspondent; he will tell you all about it."

"At any rate, the gratitude of the poor people is quite touching."

"Not quite, thank goodness!" cried Fitzgerald; "at any rate so far as I am concerned; though a horrid old woman who cannot have washed for years, and who tainted the air with the rancid fat in her hair for yards round, tried to kiss me. But I dodged round the major's horse, and left her to him. In my humble opinion, we want the square formation quite as much to meet our native friends as our enemies."

Major Elmfoot got away from his demonstrative female, and rode up to the group.

"They seem very fond of us, sir," said Stacy.

"Yes," responded the major. "I wonder whether they went through the same performance when the Mahdi's army arrived."

"But they showed fight, and he took the place by storm, did he not, sir?"

"I really do not know; a spy said so. But the place does not look knocked about at all, and the people seem very jolly. I should not be surprised if the whole thing were a farce, and Tokar had not been besieged or taken at all."

"Then you do not think they are genuine in their welcome, sir?"

"I do not say that; these people have shops of a sort, I believe, and a customer is a customer all the world over."

The troops bivouacked outside Tokar, where nothing further occurred of any interest, and shortly afterwards they tramped back to the wells at El Teb, and so to Trinkitat, where they were re-embarked as quickly as might be, and steamed round to Suakim, which now became the base of operations.

And soon Trinkitat was entirely abandoned, and since no natives lived there (how could they when they had no fresh water?) the place ceased to be a place at all in any rational sense of the word.

You may have heard the old explanation of how a cannon is made: "you take a hole, and pour a lot of melted iron round it." Well, Trinkitat was a hole, and the English store-houses tents, soldiers, horses, camels were poured round it, and when they were withdrawn, nothing but the hole remained. But Suakim was a considerable place, built of coral too, and very interesting in its way to some people. And what was of more consequence, there were many good wells close by, from which water could be obtained all the year round.

Suakim itself, as has been explained before, is built on an island, but the British camp was on the mainland, within the circuit of earthworks which protected the town and harbour. It was on the eighth of March that the First Blankshire were landed at this camp. The look of the houses in the town disappointed some of them now they were closer.

"They don't look like coral at all," said Tom Strachan. "If I had not been told I should have thought they were the ordinary sun-dried brick affairs whitewashed."

"I vote we have a regular inspection of them on the first opportunity," said Edwards, "and settle the matter once for all."

"It would be kind to posterity," replied Tom.

"If you have so much time to spare, which I very much doubt," said MacBean, "you will employ it better in visiting a very pretty place and a curious. There is just a gap in the earthworks which protects Suakim, a regular breach as one may say, which has to be defended by two strong works, which the sailors have given the names of ships to—Euryalus and Carysfoot they call them. And why is the gap left? And why are the two forts made to defend it instead of filling it up? Just because the rains, which some don't believe in, make a torrent in the proper season, and this is the watercourse, and everything which barred its passage would be swept into the sea."

"I recant and apologise," said Green. "The rain quite convinced me of its existence at Baker's Fort, I promise you. But you know you sold me so often that I hardly knew what to believe."

"I never practise upon anybody's credulity in matters of that sort," said the doctor. "If a young man likes to believe that the moon is made of green cheese, I may let him; but atmospheric and scientific facts are above being trifled with. Well, if you go through this gap, which is barely a mile off, you will find a very pretty place—the wells, and sycamore trees, and dates. Just the place to spend a happy day. And if you take a bottle or two of champagne, and a pate de foie gras, I shall not mind if I make one of the party, and show you the objects of interest."

But such a pic-nic was not destined to come off, nor was there even any opportunity given for testing the coral theory, for there was plenty of work to be done at the moment, and on the eleventh the intending pleasure-seekers started for Baker's zereba at six o'clock in the evening.

Baker Pasha's Egyptians, though they had not proved much good at fighting, and had paid the penalty of their cowardice by undergoing a massacre which made the world thrill with horror, were very useful to the avenging force which followed so quickly on their traces. The fort they had constructed near Trinkitat had done much to help the rapid and successful advance upon Tokar; and now the zereba they had made eight miles out from Suakim, and in the direction in which Osman Digna lay with his whole army, made a good first halting-place for the English troops. A zereba, it should be mentioned, is an enclosed space surrounded by thorn-covered bushes cut down and packed round it, with old packing-cases, or anything else which will afford cover to those inside. This one was particularly strong, being further protected by a mound of earth all round it.

When the force, which was the same as before, with the addition of two hundred Marines, and a mule battery of four nine-pounders, had gone some little way, night fell, but not darkness, for a bright moon lent them her rays. Not such a moon as we are accustomed to in these latitudes, but a large brilliant orb, by whose light small print might be easily read.

"You have got the best of it," said MacBean, who rode up first to one friend amongst the officers and then to another, detailing information which he managed to pick up, he himself best knew how; but it was, as a rule, exceptionally correct. "The Highlanders, who marched out to the zereba yesterday in the heat, suffered awfully. There were five cases of sunstroke, and lots of other men had a narrow squeak of being bowled over too."

"I can easily imagine it," replied Major Elmfoot, "for it was hot enough in camp."

"It is not exactly what you would call bracing to-night, even," said Fitzgerald.

And, indeed, the air was very close, and the march over the loose sand fatiguing. But the men stepped out merrily, and joke and song lightened the way. There was an improvisatore in the Blankshire, whose comrades considered him a wonderful genius, though, as a matter of fact, his extempore effusions only consisted of taking some well-known song, and altering certain words or lines to suit a particular occasion.

But this was far more successful than original composition would have been, because it was so readily understood and caught up; and the man was really shrewd, and often hit on something appropriate.

He now trolled out in a clear, ringing voice, with every word distinct, a new version of "The Poacher":—

"When I was bound apprentice in a village of Blanksheer, I served my master truly for close upon a year; But now I serves her Majesty, as you shall quickly hear, For 'tis my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year."

And then the chorus broke out far and wide:—

"For 'tis my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year."

And the lads laughed at the aptness of the "shiny night," for that was evident to the dullest capacity. Thus encouraged, he tried a second verse:—

"As the soldiers and the sailors was a marching to his lair, Old Digna he was watching us, for him we didn't care; For the bayonet beats the spear when he rushes on our square, And 'tis my delight by day or night to beat the Johnnies fair."

Towards the end of the eight miles march indeed there was less singing and laughing, for throats were dry and legs weary. What, in eight miles and at night-time? Well, the next time you are staying at a sea side place, where there is plenty of sand, you try walking along it, not where it is firm, but higher up from the sea, where you sink over your ankles at every step; if you can borrow a rifle and a hundred rounds of ball cartridge and carry that too, you will be able to form a still more just opinion; but, even without that, I invite you to consider how many more miles of it you want when you have gone four. But if they were tired and thirsty they were full of spirit, and it would only have required the sight of an enemy to make them as lively as crickets again.