Part 27 (1/2)

”Come, my children,” said Tavernay, ”fight well; the Touaregs give no quarter.”

Followed by Stretton, he led the charge. The Touaregs gave way before their furious onslaught. The soldiers reached the gun, faced about, and firing steadily kept off the enemy while the gun was run back. As soon as that was saved the battle was over. All over the hollow, wherever the Touaregs were ma.s.sed, the two guns rattled out their canister. No Arab could approach them. The sun rose over the earth, and while it was rising the Touaregs broke and fled. When it shone out in its full round, there was no one left of them in that hollow except the wounded and the dead. But the victory had been dearly bought. All about the well, lying pell-mell among the Arabs and the dead camels, were the French Legionaries, some quite still, and others writhing in pain and crying for water. Stretton drew his hand across his forehead.

He was stunned and dazed. It seemed to him that years had pa.s.sed, that he had grown very old. Yet there was the sun new-risen. There was a dull pain in his head. He raised his hand and drew it away wet with blood. How or when he had received the blow he was quite unaware. He stood staring stupidly about him. So very little while ago men were lying here sleeping in their cloaks, quite strong, living people; now they were lying dead or in pain; it was all incomprehensible.

”Why?” he asked aloud of no one. ”Now, why?”

Gradually, however, custom resumed its power. There was a man hanging limp over the parapet of the well. He looked as though he had knelt down and stooped over to drink, and in that att.i.tude had fallen asleep. But he might so easily be pushed into the well, and custom had made the preservation of wells from impurity an instinct. He removed the body and went in search of Tavernay. Tavernay was sitting propped up against a camel's saddle; the doctor was by his side, a blood-stained bandage was about his thigh. He spoke in a weak voice.

”Lieutenant Laurent?”

Stretton went in search. He came across an old grey-headed soldier rolling methodically a cigarette.

”He is dead--over there,” said the soldier. ”Have you a light?”

Laurent had died game. He was lying clasped in the arms of a gigantic Touareg, and while thus held he had been stabbed by another through the back. To that end the contemptuous smile of a lady far away in Paris had brought him. He lay with his face to the sky, his wounded vanity now quite healed. He had earned Tavernay's praise, at all events, that day. For he had fought well. Of the _sous-lieutenants_ one was killed, the other dangerously wounded. A sergeant-major lay with a broken shoulder beside one of the guns. Stretton went back to Tavernay.

”You must take command, then,” said Tavernay. ”I think you have learnt something about it on your fis.h.i.+ng-boats.” And in spite of his pain he smiled.

Stretton mustered the men and called over the names. Almost the first name which he called was the name of ”Barbier,” and Barbier, with a blood-stained rag about his head, answered. Of the two hundred and thirty men who had made up the two companies of the Legion, only forty-seven could stand in the ranks and answer to their names. For those forty-seven there was herculean work to do. Officers were appointed, the dead bodies were roughly buried, the camels collected, litters improvised for the wounded, the goat-skins filled with water.

Late in the afternoon Stretton came again to Tavernay.

”We are ready, sir.” Tavernay nodded and asked for a sheet of paper, an envelope, and ink. They were fetched from his portfolio and very slowly and laboriously he wrote a letter and handed it to Stretton.

”Seal it,” he said, ”now, in front of me.”

Stretton obeyed.

”Keep that letter. If you get back to Ouargla without me, give it to the Commandant there.”

Tavernay was lifted in a litter on to the back of a camel, and the remnant of the geographical expedition began its terrible homeward march. Eight hundred miles lay between Bir-el-Ghiramo and the safety of Ouargla. The Touaregs hung upon the rear of the force, but they did not attack again. They preferred another way. One evening a solitary Arab drove a laden camel into the bivouac. He was conducted to Stretton, and said, ”The Touaregs ask pardon and pray for peace. They will molest you no more. Indeed, they will help you, and as an earnest of their true desire for your welfare they send you a camel-load of dates.”

Stretton accepted the present, and carried the message to Tavernay, who cried at once, ”Let no one eat those dates.” But two soldiers had already eaten of them, and died of poison before the morning. Short of food, short of sentinels, the broken force crept back across the stretches of soft sand, the greyish-green plains of halfa-gra.s.s, the ridges of red hill. One by one the injured succ.u.mbed; their wounds gangrened, they were tortured by the burning sun and the motion of the camels. A halt would be made, a camel made to kneel, and a rough grave dug.

”Pelissier,” cried Stretton, and a soldier stepped out from the ranks who had once conducted ma.s.s in the church of the Madeleine in Paris.

Pelissier would recite such prayers as he remembered, and the force would move on again, leaving one more soldier's grave behind it in the desert to protest unnoticed against the economy of governments. Then came a morning when Stretton was summoned to Captain Tavernay's side.

For two days Tavernay had tossed in a delirium. He now lay beneath a rough shelter of cloaks, in his right senses, but so weak that he could not lift a hand, and with a face so pinched and drawn that his years seemed to have been doubled. His eyes shone out from big black circles. Stretton knelt down beside him.

”You have the letter?”

”Yes.”

”Do not forget.”

He lay for a while in a sort of contentment, then he said--”Do not think this expedition has been waste. A small force first and disaster ... the big force afterwards to retrieve the disaster, and with it victory, and government and peace, and a new country won for France.

That is the law of the Legion.... _My_ Legion.” He smiled, and Stretton muttered a few insincere words.

”You will recover, my captain. You will lead your companies again.”